Noncitizen voting is unconstitutional in New York, the state’s high court ruled, striking down a New York City law that permitted noncitizens to vote in municipal elections.
The New York Court of Appeals held in its 6–1 decision that the text of the New York Constitution “is facially clear that only citizens may vote in elections within the State of New York.”
The ruling blocks more than 800,000 permanent New York City residents from voting in local elections.
New York’s Democrat-led city council passed Local Law 11 in the final days of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, granting municipal voting rights to noncitizens who had been lawful permanent residents of New York City for at least 30 days, along with those authorized to work in the United States.
Neither de Blasio nor Mayor Eric Adams signed or vetoed the law. That allowed it to briefly take effect in January 2022 before a swift legal challenge from Republicans put its enforcement on hold.
The lawsuit charged that the new law violated Article II of the state’s constitution, which states that “every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election … provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.”
