At its October 20 meeting, the Community Coalition for Social Justice (CCSJ) voted to endorse the position of the League of Women Voters of West Virginia on Amendment One that is on the ballot for this election. This is the League's statement of opposition as provided by League member Cynthia Nelson to CCSJ: "The League of Women Voters of West Virginia urges voters to vote AGAINST Amendment No. 1 on your 2026 ballot. Amendment One would add a ban on non-citizen voting to our state constitution. Yet, non-citizens are already prohibited from voting under West Virginia and federal law. This statutory framework, along with other existing electoral safeguards, ensure that only eligible citizens vote in our elections. The amendment is unnecessary and serves dubious purposes. State and federal law already dictate that only U.S. citizens can vote in our elections.
"West Virginia and every other state have multiple checks in place to ensure that only eligible citizens can vote. TO even register to vote in state and federal elections, a person must swear they are a citizen under penalty of criminal prosecution. Under federal law, a non-citizen could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for a non-citizen to register or vote. False and exaggerated claims about non-citizen voting are used to enact restrictive voting laws that make it harder for eligible citizens to vote. As these falsehoods are repeated, they undermine trust in the electoral process, breed suspicion and animus toward immigrants, and sow division in our communities. The Brennan-Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and policy institute, has compiled numerous studies that rebut the myth of non-citizen voting. They also document the damage caused to our democracy by those who peddle the lie that non-citizens vote in significant numbers. Such false claims about non-citizen voting have been used to purge substantial numbers of voters from the rolls and enact restrictive voting laws that make it harder for eligible citizens to vote. The conservative Heritage Foundation actively promotes claims about the risk of non-citizens voting in its efforts to encourage states to enact restrictive voting policies. However, its own database underscores how rare these instances are. Of the 36 West Virginia election fraud cases in the Heritage Foundation database (1982-2024), only one mentions registering and voting by a non-citizen."
Please join us in voting against this amendment.
Thank you.
CCSJ Board Members