The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit this week seeking to ensure that only Burlington, Vermont residents can vote in elections.
Residents of Burlington, the Green Mountain State’s largest city, have approved a charter amendment that will allow non-citizens to vote in city council elections in March 2023.
Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, later refused to give state approval to the bill, which was rejected by the state Legislature.
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The RNC argued that such an election would affect Vermont’s education budget and violate a provision in the state constitution that says only Vermont residents may vote on issues affecting the state.
“Americans should decide American elections,” says Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley He said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
“The Democrats’ relentless efforts to allow foreign nationals to vote are undermining the voice of Americans in Vermont and across the country,” he said.
A Republican National Committee spokesman added in comments to Fox News that Democrats’ “relentless efforts” to allow foreign nationals to vote are “alarming.”
“Combined with their devastating border crisis, foreign nationals’ votes prioritize illegal immigrants over Americans and put our elections at risk,” the spokesman said.
Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, initially vetoed the city’s charter amendment but was overruled. (Philscott.org)
While it is still illegal for foreigners to vote in elections at the federal level, Burlington is not the only state that allows it.
In the Burlington suburb of Winooski, 11 people took advantage of the town’s “everyone” voting policy, according to a person familiar with the matter. NPR.
The city of Takoma Park, Maryland, adjacent to Washington, DC, recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of being the first municipality in the United States to grant voting rights to foreign nationals.
According to a 2023 city statement on the matter, 20 percent of the city’s roughly 350 foreign residents voted in an unofficial election in 2017.
Takoma Park’s 1992 policy change was spearheaded by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a resident and then-law professor at American University.
Identification and proof of residency are required, according to a city statement.
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Washington, DC itself allows non-citizens to vote in municipal elections.
In February, a New York state appeals court overturned New York City’s foreign voting rights rule, but several Midwestern states had banned the practice in the early 1900s.
In 2020, voters in Florida and Alabama overwhelmingly approved state constitutional amendments in referendums declaring that residents may only vote within their states.
Politically, Burlington is best known as the city where prominent Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont, Independent) launched his political career, a self-described “democratic socialist” who served as the city’s mayor from 1981 to 1989.
Fox News Digital reached out to the City of Burlington for comment. A person who answered the phone at City Hall directed Fox News Digital to a spokesperson, but no one responded.
