Abstract:
Congress strikes at the core of state sovereignty when it
disenfranchises voters. Yet demands for national
disenfranchisement laws have become pervasive since the 2016
election, and Congress has a ready model: a federal statute
prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Despite
upending centuries of state control over voter qualifications, this
statute remains unchallenged in court and unexamined in
academia; its constitutionality has been assumed. This Article
challenges this assumption, arguing that the federal ban on
noncitizen voting—along with every other voter qualification
Congress imposes—unconstitutionally infringes state sovereignty.
