The Vermont Republican Party and its national counterpart are again taking aim at the Winooski charter for allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, challenging in a new lawsuit whether noncitizens can legally cast ballots for the city’s school board and school budgets.
The suit, filed Thursday in Chittenden County Superior civil court, argues that votes on school issues are of “statewide concern” because Vermont’s education system is financed through a statewide education fund. And under Section 42 of the state’s constitution, the filing claims, only U.S. citizens can vote on “any matter that concerns the State of Vermont.”
The lawsuit aims to exclude noncitizens from school board elections because board members create the budgets that are then paid for using state funds, it says.
“Plaintiffs seek a declaration that authorization of noncitizen voting on matters involving the City of Winooski’s school board and education budget is unconstitutional and void,” the lawsuit — which also lists two Winooski residents as plaintiffs — states.
Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott said Thursday that the city is confident its charter will stand up to additional legal tests, adding that she thinks it’s important that noncitizen residents are able to vote on school district issues.
“When we did outreach ahead of the charter change with noncitizen residents, I got the sense that school issues were actually more important — it was something they were more familiar with than municipal ones,” Lott said in an interview.
For two years, Winooski has allowed noncitizens to vote in both city government and school district elections. A similar measure also in effect in Montpelier since 2022 — which isn’t part of the latest litigation — applies only to city government elections.
The GOP sued both cities in 2021, alleging that their noncitizen voting measures were unconstitutional as written because many local elections are “procedurally indistinguishable from state elections.” Noncitizens cannot vote in state or federal elections.
In January, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld a 2022 Washington County Superior Court decision to dismiss the suit against Montpelier, finding that the city’s charter provision did not violate the voter-eligibility requirements in the state’s constitution.
Specifically, the high court ruled that Section 42’s requirement that a person must be a U.S. citizen in order to be considered “a voter of this state” applies only to statewide elections, and not to local elections in all cases.
The Thursday lawsuit notes that justices did not, at the time, consider what makes a vote “municipal” or “statewide” in nature. And the justices wrote that an election that is “municipal in name” — but that “traditionally” concerns a statewide issue — “could not avoid” being subjected to the state constitution’s voter-eligibility requirements.
Brady Toensing — a former vice chair of the state GOP who led former President Donald Trump’s Vermont campaign committee in 2016, and went on to serve in Trump’s Department of Justice — wrote the complaints filed both in 2021 and Thursday.
“I’m letting the complaint speak for itself,” Toensing said when reached by phone.
The lawsuit also argues that two Winooski residents — Douglas Weston and Michael Myers — “have suffered redressable harm” as a result of the charter measure because their “votes will be diluted by noncitizen votes.”
Weston and Myers could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
Moreover, the suit maintains that the Vermont GOP and Republican National Committee will have to spend additional money to recruit and support candidates “who will have to contend with an expanded voter pool that includes unconstitutional noncitizen votes.”
According to data shared Thursday by Paul Sarne, Winooski’s communications director, 16 noncitizens voted on Town Meeting Day in Winooski this year — just less than 2% of all ballots cast. The number of noncitizen voters was higher last year — 54, the data shows — though still well below the estimated 600 noncitizens who are able to vote.
Lott said there are other ways residents can have an impact on local elections than attempting to stop a certain demographic in the city from casting ballots.
“If they really want their voice more represented, then they should rally their neighbors and other residents to vote,” she said of the residents who are listed in the lawsuit.
Winooski is Vermont’s most racially diverse city and is home to a large population of refugees. About 20% of its roughly 8,000 residents speak a language other than English at home, according to U.S. Census data.
Burlington voters passed a charter change Tuesday that would allow noncitizens in that city to vote in local government and school elections. It still must be approved by the Legislature and Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who vetoed Winooski and Montpelier’s measures. (The Legislature successfully voted to override both vetoes.)
About a dozen other communities around the country allow some form of noncitizen voting, as well, according to Ballotpedia.
Republican Party officials successfully sued New York City last summer to get a noncitizen voting measure there struck down. In a statement Thursday about the Winooski lawsuit, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, referred to the New York lawsuit, adding that “we are fighting for another victory on behalf of election integrity.”
“American elections should only be decided by American citizens in Vermont and nationwide,” McDaniel said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the role of two Winooski residents in the suit.