Noncitizens can vote in Washington, D.C., local elections, not federal elections

Does the District of Columbia allow noncitizens to vote in federal elections? A viral social media post claims that’s so.

The May 25 Instagram post included a photo of the voter registration form for non-U.S. citizens in the District of Columbia. "‘Illegals can't vote, that's a conspiracy theory, you're crazy’ crowd? Y’all real quiet right now," the caption said. "I have been warning about this for years! Turns out, they can vote in federal elections thanks to a bill passed during the Obama admin."

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

Other Instagram posts made similar claims.

The District of Columbia noncitizen voter registration form pictured in the Instagram video includes information telling noncitizen prospective voters that they "must be a United States citizen to vote in federal elections." The form also lists the specific elections noncitizens are eligible to participate in, but that section of the form is not shown in the Instagram photo. The District of Columbia Board of Elections website also states that "non-citizens cannot vote for federal offices."

Noncitizens who live in Washington, D.C., gained the right to vote from a 2022 law passed by the Council of the District of Columbia, the local legislative body. Mayor Muriel Bowser approved the law, which took effect Feb. 23, 2023. The Instagram post mentions "a bill passed during the Obama (administration);" President Barack Obama’s second and final presidential term ended in January 2017.

In the United States’ capital, resident noncitizens can vote only in local elections for positions including mayor, attorney general, city council member, State Board of Education member or Advisory Neighborhood Commission member. Noncitizens can also vote on local referendums, ballot initiatives and recalls.

As of April 30, 372 noncitizen residents had registered to vote, according to the District of Columbia Board of Elections. With 450,750 total registered voters as of that date, noncitizens comprised less than 1% of the district’s registered voters.

As of May 29, the number of registered noncitizen voters had increased to 523,  Sarah Winn Graham, Board of Elections communications director, wrote in an email to PolitiFact. Latest figures for total registered voters as of the end of May will be published in early June, she added. 

The first local election in which noncitizens are eligible to vote will take place June 4. The law also lets immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are living in Washington, D.C., vote in these local elections. The elections body does not track the immigration status of registered noncitizen voters, Graham said.

Other cities that allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections and referendums include San Francisco (school board elections only), Hyattsville, Maryland, and Burlington, Vermont.

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Noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections in the District of Columbia or anywhere else in the U.S. A 1996 law passed by Congress explicitly banned noncitizens from voting in federal elections such as for president, U.S. senators or the House of Representatives.

Although the District of Columbia is not a U.S. state, it conducts some federal-level elections for "a non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives, two shadow Senators, and one shadow Representative whose task is to petition Congress for statehood." None of these representatives have any voting power in the U.S. legislature. However in U.S. presidential elections, its residents have three Electoral College votes.

PolitiFact has found that voting by noncitizens is rare and not enough to change the outcome of federal elections. Registered noncitizen voters in the District of Columbia receive only ballots marked "local" and "voter information is stored in a separate component within our Voter Focus database system and the physical voter registration form is a different color (yellow)," Graham said. 

Washington, D.C.’s unique territorial status allows the U.S. Congress to block local laws. On May 23, U.S. House Republicans passed a bill that blocks the district’s noncitizen voting law with support from 52 House Democrats. The bill would need to pass in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate and gain  President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.

We rate the claim that noncitizens in Washington, D.C., can vote in federal elections False.

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