On Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, voters across Wisconsin will vote on a constitutional amendment related to citizenship status and voting.
The proposal would add language to Wisconsin’s constitution that says only U.S. citizens over the age of 18 can vote in federal, state, local or school elections.
Here’s the question that will appear on your ballot:
Eligibility to vote. Shall section 1 of article III of the constitution, which deals with suffrage, be amended to provide that only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or at a statewide or local referendum?
Currently, this section of the state constitution says “every” U.S. citizen may vote. The proposed amendment would change the language to “only” U.S. citizens.
It’s already true that only citizens may vote in Wisconsin. But the Republicans authors of the proposal say this change is necessary as a preventative measure, because some states have allowed non-U.S. citizens to vote in local elections. Opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment say that it stigmatizes immigrants and noncitizens, and feeds into misinformation around election security.
Voting yes means you support adding an amendment to Wisconsin’s constitution that says only U.S. citizens who are 18+ years old can vote.
Voting no means you oppose such an amendment.
If the amendment is approved, it's unclear how it would be enforced. The amendment does not say how the legal requirements for voting would change, if at all.
Anthony Chergosky, an assistant professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, breaks down the proposed amendment for Lake Effect.
Wisconsin voters have seen some different questions on our ballots in the past few years. So to start off, what is this question even doing on my ballot?
If we consider the process through which a constitutional amendment gets on the Wisconsin ballot, it requires two stages. The first stage is approval by the Wisconsin state Legislature. Now that is a little different than the typical lawmaking process. The first difference is that a proposed constitutional amendment needs to be voted on twice. It needs to be voted on in two consecutive sessions of the Wisconsin state Legislature. It needs to be approved by a majority vote in both the Senate and the Assembly, and it is not subject to the veto of the governor.
So some real differences there. Because for a typical law, it only needs to be passed once, and it is subject to the veto of the governor.
The second stage is approval by the voters. So voters will go to the ballot in November, and they will see the latest proposed Wisconsin constitutional amendment on their ballot.
We have seen Republicans put forth a number of proposed constitutional amendment since Tony Evers was elected governor in 2018, for exactly the reason that I mentioned earlier: The governor cannot veto proposed constitutional amendments, and the governor cannot prevent proposed constitutional amendments from making their way to the ballot. In a time of divided control of government — with a Democratic governor and Republican majorities in the Wisconsin state Legislature — we have seen a real uptick in Republicans using the constitutional amendment route as a way to circumvent the veto pen of Gov. Evers.
This November, voters will see a question related to voting and noncitizens. What is this question all about?
It says that only citizens age 18 or older and those who are a resident of Wisconsin may vote in national, state or local elections. Now this is already true in Wisconsin. It is already true that only citizens may vote. But Republicans argue that this amendment is necessary to head off potential efforts by local governments to enable noncitizens to vote in local elections, for example, school board elections.
Republicans point to examples around the nation of local governments aiming to open the way for noncitizens to vote. So this is nothing new — that noncitizens would not be allowed to vote in federal or state elections — and there are not any cases in Wisconsin in which noncitizens would be able to vote in local elections. But Republicans argue that this is necessary as a preventative measure to discourage local governments from even going down that route.
So a “yes” vote, in this case, means “yes, I want this added to the constitution.” And a “no” vote means “no, I do not want this added.”
Yep, a “no” vote would maintain the status quo, and a “yes” vote would mean adding this amendment to the constitution.
It sounds like nothing would change practically if this passed. How often does this actually happen, for Republicans to have these concerns about noncitizens voting in Wisconsin?
Democrats have accused Republicans of playing into conspiracy theories and playing into doubts about elections. We know that this occurs in a context in which the Republican Party has focused on issues of elections, certainly in the aftermath of the 2020 election. So you're absolutely right. Practically speaking, this would not change anything in Wisconsin.
Also in that national context, it's impossible to untangle this from the backdrop of immigration and the border being a huge issue in this year's presidential election.
To me, this constitutional amendment is much more interesting regarding what it says about the broader political context than any practical effect or any concrete way that this amendment would change the conduct of Wisconsin elections.
The context here matters more than any tangible outcome of this amendment vote might matter. Republicans have said that they want to continue using constitutional amendments in Wisconsin, in spite of the fact that they experienced a setback in the August election, where two of their proposed constitutional amendments were voted down in the August primary.
In spite of that setback for Republicans, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said that the Republican Party should double down on constitutional amendments. Of course, a lot of this hinges on the outcome of the November elections, because if Republicans lose majority control of the state Assembly, then they will lose the opportunity to propose and advance constitutional amendments.
Who is against this and who's been vocal against this referendum?
We have seen Democratic leaders speak out against the proposed constitutional amendment on citizenship and voting, basically saying that this is unnecessary, that it stigmatizes people and that it feeds into conspiracy theories about elections.
For Democrats, it seems like their opposition to this amendment isn't so much based on the substance of the amendment as it is their critique of the Republican political strategy behind the amendment.
Is there anything else that you would like to mention?
I am deeply skeptical that this will drive voter turnout or at all affect the outcome of the November election. I do think the constitutional amendments on the August ballot did drive voter turnout. And they did so in a way that really advantaged the Democratic Party's side of the constitutional amendment debate.
Those amendments drove the political dialogue for the August primary because there simply wasn't much else on the ballot. In fact, the constitutional amendments in August were the only thing on the statewide ballot. So the difference between the August primary and the November election is night and day.
Wisconsin remains pivotal in the presidential election. There is a competitive U.S. Senate race. There are competitive U.S. House of Representatives races in certain parts of the state, and there is a vigorous battle for majority control of the state Assembly. It's hard for me to see how there's going to be much attention paid to the proposed constitutional amendment in November, given everything else that's on the ballot.
That means voters are going to have to rely on the text that they see on the ballot if they don't know a lot about this issue going in. And in Wisconsin, that text can be highly technical, it can be difficult for people to understand. So that's what I'm watching as we head towards the November election.
This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.