A superior court judge has ruled that Montpelier can continue to let residents without U.S. citizenship vote in local elections, denying a Republican-led attempt to block the practice.
In a Friday ruling, Judge Robert Mello of Washington Superior Court rejected an argument by the state and national Republican parties that noncitizen voting violates the Vermont Constitution.
While the constitution states that U.S. citizenship is a requirement to vote, that language applies to state elections, not municipal ones, Mello said in his decision. Eligibility for a municipal election is determined by the state Legislature, the judge wrote.
Montpelier received the Legislature’s blessing to enact noncitizen voting last year, three years after voters approved a change to the city’s charter authorizing the practice. Republican Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the charter change, advocating instead for a statewide approach, but more than two-thirds of the Legislature overrode that veto.
In September, three months after the veto, Republicans sued the cities of Montpelier and Winooski — which had passed a similar charter change — and asked that the charter amendments be struck down. No decision has yet been made in the Winooski lawsuit.
In the Montpelier lawsuit, Mello cited legal precedent from the early days of Vermont’s statehood to support the Legislature’s authority over municipal voting.
To Republicans, however, the centuries-old case law should not have applied to contemporary elections.
In the past 200 years, municipal elections have grown increasingly complex, the Republicans argued. Because of that added complexity, local elections no longer affect a single town — they now impact the entire state. As a result, according to the Republicans, local voters should be held to the same standards as statewide voters, which include U.S. citizenship.
Yet Mello shot down that argument, saying that it had “no clear foundation in Vermont law.”
“This is not a case where a fully qualified state voter is somehow being prevented from voting in an election protected by the constitution,” Mello wrote. “The issue is merely whether a noncitizen may vote in a municipal election when the legislature grants that right.”
Though he rejected their argument, Mello affirmed that the Republicans had grounds to sue the city of Montpelier. Because the parties included two Montpelier voters in their suit, the court was obliged to weigh in on whether noncitizen voting resulted in “voter dilution,” the judge wrote.
“Vermont cities and towns, including the City of Montpelier, are quite small, increasing the impact of each vote cast and, correspondingly, increasing the dilution of each vote cast when the pool of voters increases,” Mello said. “The U.S. Supreme Court generally has found an injury for standing purposes when a voter’s vote is diluted.”
In launching their lawsuit against Montpelier, Republicans called the noncitizen voting charter change a “blatant attack on election integrity.”
“Unlike radical Democrats, we believe that our elections should be decided solely by American citizens,” said Ronna McDaniel, chairperson of the National Republican Committee, in a statement. “This is a matter of principle and we will fight in all 50 states to ensure this remains the case.”
To continue the Montpelier lawsuit, Republicans can either ask Mello to reconsider his ruling or appeal the case to the Vermont Supreme Court. Brady Toensing, an attorney representing the Republicans, declined to comment for this report.