New York’s highest court has delivered the final blow to an attempt by state Democrats to extend voting rights to nearly a million foreign nationals.
In January 2022, Democrats on the 51-member New York City Council approved an ordinance to give more than 800,000 foreign nationals with green cards, visas, and work permits the opportunity to vote in citywide elections so long as they have resided in the city for at least 30 consecutive days.
Following lawsuits over the ordinance, the New York Supreme Court in June 2022 ruled that giving local voting rights to foreign nationals violated the state’s constitution, which explicitly reserves voting for American “citizens.”
In February, that ruling was upheld by the New York Appellate Division.
On Thursday, the State of New York Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance is unconstitutional because the state constitution “makes clear what our case law has long held: Article II, section 1 restricts voting to citizens.”
“Article II, section 1 has been amended several times since 1894, but the citizenship requirement has persisted. There is no evidence that any of the amendments changed the understanding that a voter must be a citizen to vote in New York,” the court ruled:
Whatever the future may bring, the New York Constitution as it stands today draws a firm line restricting voting to citizens. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division insofar as appealed from should be modified, without costs, in accordance with this opinion and, as so modified, affirmed. [Emphasis added]
“This is a major victory for election integrity and the rule of law,” New York City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), a plaintiff in the case, said. “The Constitution is clear: Noncitizens do not have the right to vote, and this reckless scheme undermined the value of American citizenship.”
As Breitbart News noted, the ordinance was set to massively influence local elections while diluting the votes of American citizens living in the city. In 2021, for instance, Mayor Eric Adams (D) won the Democrat mayoral primary by less than 7,200 votes.
Former councilman Rev. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx) said the ordinance would dilute the votes of citizens while shifting electoral power to foreign nationals with ties to the United Nations, Wall Street, and the global financial system, which has long been based in New York City.
The case is Vito J. Fossella v. Eric Adams in the State of New York Court of Appeals.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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