Editorial: Don't let foreigners vote in our elections
Article publisher:
Gazette
Article date:
17 November 2019
Article category:
Colorado News
Medium
Article Body:
Congratulations to Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville for leading a successful petition to protect the integrity of Colorado elections.
Neville and other organizers this week turned in more than 200,000 signatures to improve election language in the Colorado Constitution. If the secretary of state validates 124,632 signatures, Initiative 76 will appear on the 2020 ballot to guarantee prohibition against noncitizens voting in Colorado elections.
The state constitution states “every citizen” who is at least age 18 can vote in a local, county, state or federal election in Colorado. Initiative 76 would reword the law to say “only a citizen of the United States” who is at least 18 is eligible to vote (emphasis ours).
Though it may seem an unnecessary change, San Francisco exploited a weakness in the state law and allowed noncitizens to vote for the first time last year. Activists in Douglas County and other areas of Colorado are angling for local laws to include illegal immigrants in elections, hoping to turn this demographic into a loyal constituency for left-wing candidates and causes....
We require citizenship among foreign-born voters for the same reason other countries do so. Mexico doesn’t allow Americans to vote in that country’s elections because Americans should not determine the governance of Mexicans. We require citizenship for the same reason local jurisdictions require residency among voters. Pueblo does not allow residents of Colorado Springs to vote in its elections, for obvious reasons....
In the likely event this initiative makes the ballot, voters should approve it.