New York Noncitizen Voting Law’s Demise Was Inevitable

Permitting noncitizens to vote has been an obsessive concern for New York City progressives for almost 20 years. Efforts to extend voting rights in municipal elections to noncitizens had failed repeatedly—until December 9, 2021, when the city council extended the vote to all “legal residents,” to great acclaim from advocates and sponsors of the legislation. 

The triumphant noise among progressives and the city’s expansive immigrant-rights nonprofit network was deafening. “So, we live in a democracy,” declared Council Member Carlina Rivera on the day of the vote, “but nearly one million New Yorkers with a green card or work authorization are not going to be able to vote in our local election. Well, that changes today!” A large crowd erupted in applause. Supporters hailed the bill’s passage as a historic moment—proof, they said, that democracy was finally living up to its ideals.

New York State’s highest court declared the law illegal in March 2025. Debate on the bill from the beginning noted that it appeared to violate the state constitution, which holds that “[e]very citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people and upon all questions submitted to the vote of the people provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.” The language unmistakably limits the vote to “citizens.” Advocates either pretended not to notice this stipulation or made tendentious claims about its meaning.

That the law would be overturned seemed inevitable, even at the time of its passage. I asked then–City Council Speaker Corey Johnson—who had shepherded and celebrated the bill’s approval—whether he thought it would survive court challenges. He shrugged. “Who knows?” he said, though his tone clearly suggested, “Who cares?” The instant of victory, he meant, was more important than the actual prize. What progressives seek is the appearance of progress—for without the impression of momentum, they falter. Even if their immediate cause for action is an obvious nonstarter, the important thing is to rally the troops and wave the flag, if only to demonstrate their capacity to activate themselves.

As the case made its way through the courts, with judges at every level ruling the law invalid, activists rallied outside City Hall and other government buildings, insisting on the essential right of recent arrivals to vote in local elections. “Our city, our vote!” they chanted. “I don’t always go to Staten Island, but when I do it’s to protect our democracy,” Brooklyn Council Member Shahana Hanif posted after a Richmond County court issued an injunction blocking the law’s implementation in June 2022. “Whether they came here or were born here, Asian New Yorkers deserve a voice in our city!” said a representative of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, standing in front of the State Supreme Court building in June 2023 as the city council advanced its first appeal of the ruling. That appeal failed in February 2024.

By the time of the city council’s second appeal in February 2025, the writing was on the wall. Advocates barely bothered to stage demonstrations in support of the law. A month later, six of the state’s seven highest court justices—most of them liberals—ruled that the New York Constitution clearly reserves the right to vote for citizens. The response from advocates, already reeling from the second Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda, was muted. Cesar Ruiz, associate counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, called the ruling a “terrible setback for our immigrant communities who contribute so much to the well-being of the city.”

Attention has since shifted to the next cause. The New York Immigration Coalition, once a leading force behind the push for noncitizen voting, is now focused on staging demonstrations to free Mahmoud Khalid. Make the Road, another immigrant advocacy group, is promoting its “Deportation Defense Manual.” New York City’s immigrant advocacy machine—which receives tens of millions in taxpayer dollars annually—will keep running. There’s always a new crisis to rally around.

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