Another Federal Judge

…gets it right.  US District Judge Eric Melgren has ruled that Kansas and Arizona can, indeed, require proof of citizenship as a criterion for registering to vote in Federal elections: American elections are for American citizens only.  The second clause of the 14th Amendment is pretty clear on this.

Melgren ruled, in part,

Because the Court finds that Congress has not preempted state laws requiring proof of citizenship through the National Voter Registration Act, the Court finds the decision of the EAC denying the states’ requests to be unlawful and in excess of its statutory authority.  Since the Court’s decision turns on the plain statutory language, the Court need not resolve the question of whether the Constitution permits the EAC, or Congress, to disregard the states’ own determination of what they require to satisfactorily determine citizenship.

As the Kansas City Star pointed out,

Nationally, voting rights experts contend that the court’s ruling—if it survives on near-certain appeals—could open the door for more states to enact laws requiring voters to produce documents proving their citizenship.

One can certainly hope so.  Like I said: American elections are for American citizens only.

Melgren also noted

The Constitution gives each state exclusive authority to determine the qualifications of voters for state and federal elections.  Article I, section 2, clause 1—often called the Qualifications Clause—provides that the voters for the US House of Representatives in each state shall have the same qualifications required for voters of the largest branch of the state legislature.  The Seventeenth Amendment adopts the same requirement for voters for the US Senate.  The US Supreme Court has read these provisions to conclude that the states, not Congress, set the voter qualifications for federal elections.

Melgren went on to note that the same Clause also grants Congress the power to overrule the States’ rules statutorily—and that the Congress has not done so.  We can look forward to further Democratic Party efforts to sully our elections by attempting to get Congress to force the States to accept anyone as voter, citizen or not.

Melgren’s ruling can be read here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *