New York City’s law allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections is unconstitutional, according to the state’s highest court.

On Thursday, six of the seven justices on New York’s Court of Appeals struck down New York City’s law, which would have given more than 800,000 non-citizens with permanent residency or are eligible to work the right to vote in local elections. 

State Republican lawmakers challenged the measure after it automatically became law when Mayor Adams declined to veto it in January 2022. The lawsuit contended that the law violated a portion of Article II of New York’s constitution, which states that “every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people” as long as they are older than 18 and have lived in the state and municipality they are trying to vote in for at least 30 days. 

Chief Justice Rowan Wilson wrote in the majority’s decision, “Appellants urge that Article II, section 1 merely provides a floor, guaranteeing that citizens may vote in all elections but not prohibiting voting by others. Under that interpretation, municipalities are free to enact legislation that would enable anyone to vote—including, as counsel for appellants stated during oral argument, thirteen-year-old children.”

“It is plain from the language and restrictions contained in Article II that ‘citizen’ is not meant as a floor, but as a condition of voter eligibility: the franchise extends only to citizens whose right to vote is established by proper proofs and who vote by ballot,” Justice Wilson said. 

The chief justice said that while Article II of the state constitution has been “amended several times” since it was written in 1894, the “citizenship requirement has persisted.” 

The sole dissenter in the decision, Associate Justice Jenny Rivera, wrote in her opinion, “While the Election Law permits only United States citizens to register and vote, it expressly allows localities to exercise their home rule authority and supersede this requirement.”

Justice Rivera said the question was not about whether giving non-citizens the right to vote is “good policy,” but rather about the “private affairs” of local governments and the “primacy of home rule.”

“Until the majority’s decision here, this Court had uniformly recognized the primacy of home rule. To that end, restrictions on local control can only be achieved by express constitutional or state statutory limitations on the exercise of local authority over local elections, and not by implication,” she said. “ There is no such express prohibition on local enfranchisement of noncitizens. To reach its conclusion that Local Law 11 is unconstitutional, the majority rewrites Article II, section 1, rejecting its plain text.”

All of the justices on the court were appointed by Democrat governors. 

A Democrat member of the New York City Council, Robert Holden, said in a statement about Thursday’s ruling, “This is a major victory for election integrity and the rule of law. The Constitution is clear: noncitizens do not have the right to vote, and this reckless scheme undermined the value of American citizenship.”

“I was proud to be a plaintiff in this case, and today, the courts have affirmed what we always knew—only American citizens should decide our elections,” he said. 

A Republican mayoral candidate, Curtis Sliwa, said in a statement, “With one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country, our city needs to do more to engage working people who feel shut out of the process.”

“Before expanding voting rights to noncitizens, we should focus on ensuring that more New Yorkers feel their voices matter. Too many hardworking people in this city have given up on politics because they believe the system doesn’t work for them,” he added. 

The state Senate minority leader, Rob Ortt, posted on X, “The decision by the Court of Appeals is a victory for every New Yorker who believes in our Constitution. Even the stacked Court of Appeals cannot deny the fact that the sacred right to vote is one that belongs to the American citizen only.”

Two lower courts in the state found the law unconstitutional before it made its way to the Court of Appeals.