Georgia Senate Panel Advocates Constitutional Ban on Non-Citizen Voting – WABE

A state Senate committee is supporting a plan to amend the Georgia constitution to include a ban on voting for noncitizens, already enshrined in state law.

The Senate Ethics Committee voted 7-2 Thursday to move Senate Resolution 363 forward. It will be forwarded to the full Senate for further debate. A constitutional change requires a two-thirds majority in each chamber to advance to an electoral referendum, meaning united Democrats could end the measure.

Republican Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller of Gainesville and other proponents argue that current constitutional provisions stating that all Georgia citizens should be eligible to vote need to be clarified to reflect state statutes that say only United States citizens should be eligible to vote and Georgia residents may vote .

“It sends a clear message that Georgia voting rights are sacred and citizenship matters,” Miller said.

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has lobbied for the change. Sam Teasley, from Raffensperger’s office, said the state should “get that level of clarity” and predicted that “there would be broad bipartisan support for a measure to clarify that only citizens should vote in elections”.

The measure was previously debated in the Legislature, but Miller’s endorsement gives it an extra boost in the Senate. It’s one of several bills designed to appeal to conservatives Miller supports while he’s up against candidates in a Republican primary for lieutenant governor, including Senator Burt Jones of Jackson, who was backed by former President Donald Trump.

Recently, New York City ruled that legal permanent residents could vote in city elections. This law is being challenged in court. Two cities in Vermont and nine cities in Maryland allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, while San Francisco allows noncitizens, parents of students, to vote in school board elections.

Such movements would currently be illegal under Georgia state law.

Opponents, including Cindy Battles of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, say the measure will scapegoat Georgia’s growing immigrant communities.

“The message is, first, there is voter fraud, widespread voter fraud, second, this widespread voter fraud was committed by certain people,” Battles told the committee Thursday. “It continues a lie that has been told over and over again with no data to prove it.”

There have been few allegations of voting in Georgia by people who are not American citizens. The state election board fined a Gwinnett County woman $500 in 2021, saying she was not a citizen and voted in 2012 and 2016.
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