A national conservative group on Monday appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court a lower court decision dismissing their challenge to noncitizen voting in Burlington.
The appeal was filed by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections on behalf of Burlington residents Karen Rowell and Michele Morin. It prolongs the group’s lawsuit, first filed in June 2024, that challenges a Burlington charter change allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.
“Vermont’s Constitution is clear: when it comes to votes concerning state matters, only U.S. citizens have the right to decide,” Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for the conservative group, said in a press release. “RITE is proud to stand with Vermont citizens to defend the rule of law and fight the left’s creeping endorsement of noncitizen voting.”
Joe Magee, the deputy chief of staff for Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and a spokesperson for the city, said that the city “is confident that our all legal resident voting provision is defensible, and we look forward to a favorable ruling by the Court.”
Burlington voters in 2023 approved a charter change to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. The Vermont Legislature overrode a veto by Republican Gov. Phil Scott to enact it several months later.
Under the city’s charter, legal noncitizen residents — green card holders and residents with eligible work permits, for example — have the right to vote in local government and school board elections and ballot questions.
RITE’s 2024 lawsuit alleges that Section 42 of the Vermont Constitution forbids noncitizen voting on statewide matters and makes Burlington’s charter change “unconstitutional and void.”
Because school budgets have statewide implications — school budgets are determined locally but are ultimately funded by the state — only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote on them, the group’s suit claims.
Chittenden County Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar Jr. dismissed the case in February. The RITE group is now asking the state’s highest court to weigh in.
The case is being headed by Brady Toensing, a former vice chair of the state GOP who also served in the Department of Justice during President Donald Trump’s first term. Attorneys Patrick Strawbridge and James Hasson are also listed on the appeal.
While noncitizen voting is not permitted in federal elections, Vermont is one of several states to allow it in local elections. In addition to Burlington, both Winooski and Montpelier allow noncitizen voting.
The national and state branches of the Republican Party sued both of those cities over the issue in 2021, alleging that their noncitizen voting measures were unconstitutional. Both lawsuits were eventually dismissed, though one was appealed.
In January 2023, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld a 2022 Washington Superior civil court decision to dismiss the suit against Montpelier. The Supreme Court ruled then that Montpelier’s charter provision did not violate the state’s constitution.
