West Virginia Voters Approve Amendment to Prohibit Noncitizen Voting

By the time the Associated Press called the race at 8:43 p.m. Tuesday, the shape of the decision was already unmistakable: 78.8% of West Virginia voters had backed Amendment 1, with 21.2% opposed, according to unofficial results from 73% of precincts counted, West Virginia Watch reported. Decision Desk HQ projected the measure would pass with nearly 80% support once almost all of the vote was reported early Wednesday, The Hill reported.

The amendment rewrites a single line of the West Virginia Constitution. The old language said “the citizens of the State shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within the counties in which they respectively reside.” The new language reads: “only citizens of the United States who are citizens of this state shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within the counties in which they respectively reside.”

From Statute to Constitutional Bedrock

Here is what makes the vote matter beyond symbolism: West Virginia law already requires voters to be U.S. citizens. The state code spells out that requirement today, and noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections nationwide. Only a small group of municipalities, plus Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in certain local elections, according to Ballotpedia. What Amendment 1 does is move the citizenship requirement from ordinary statute into the state constitution itself, where a future Legislature cannot erase it with a simple bill.

West Virginia voters to decide on state constitutional voting amendment Tuesday

State Sen. Patricia Rucker, a Republican from Jefferson County and a sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 9, the proposal that put the question on the ballot, argued in September that the statutory prohibition was not durable enough because “laws can change.” A constitutional amendment, she said, “would ensure that no future Legislature could just simply change the election law with only a bill” and would give the state “greater authority to enforce the law we currently have in place.”

“I’m proud that West Virginia’s voters chose to protect the integrity of our elections tonight with their yes vote on Amendment 1,” Rucker said in a written statement Tuesday. “The right to vote, especially as a naturalized United States citizen, is something I hold close to my heart. Tonight’s result ensures that all West Virginians can be confident that only United States citizens are participating in our elections, and that that can’t be changed by any future Legislature or city deciding otherwise.”

The full amended text, as West Virginia Watch laid it out, keeps the existing disqualifications intact — minors, people declared mentally incompetent, those under conviction of treason, felony or bribery in an election, and people who have not met the 30-day state and county residency requirement — while adding the explicit “only citizens of the United States” threshold at the front.

𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐕𝐈𝐑𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐀 𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐍𝐒-𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 — 𝟕𝟖.𝟗% 𝐘𝐄𝐒 It is already illegal for a noncitizen to vote in West Virginia. Tonight, voters made it 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞… pic.twitter.com/fwNqLYwQLG

— https://x.com/MichaelARothman/status/2117813123474497579

A National Wave of Ballot Measures

West Virginia was not voting in isolation. Ballotpedia noted that more than a dozen states put election-policy questions before voters Tuesday, including six states asking directly about voting and citizenship and six more asking about voter ID. The citizenship-only amendments are part of a broader campaign: Americans for Citizen Voting, an organization working to pass such amendments nationwide, says 15 states have now written citizen-only voting into their constitutions, according to West Virginia Watch.

Republicans have leaned into voting and identification issues, particularly as President Trump has asserted without basis that widespread voter fraud occurred in U.S. elections, The Hill reported. Trump pressed GOP lawmakers to pass legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register and photo ID at the polls, though those efforts have been unsuccessful.

Not everyone agrees the amendment was needed. The West Virginia Citizen Action Group opposed it, telling West Virginia Watch the measure was unnecessary and “perpetuates long-debunked conspiracy theories and scapegoats our immigrant neighbors to sow mistrust in our election results.”

For voters, the practical change is narrow but structural: the rule they already live under is now anchored in the constitution. The state’s Secretary of State issued the public notice for the proposed amendment, the existing citizenship requirement sits in state code, and the full text of Senate Joint Resolution 9 shows the language voters approved. With Amendment 1, West Virginia joins the 15 states that have made the citizen-only voting rule constitutional, making it the hardest version of the law to unwind.

Earlier coverage: West Virginia Voters Approve Amendment Requiring U.S. Citizenship to Vote