Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Commentary by Ronna McDaniel originally published by RealClearPolitics.com
Last month, the New York City Council decided to let noncitizens vote in local elections. The Republican National Committee hit back, filing a lawsuit against the Democrat-run city’s illegal action. Over and over, the RNC has proved its commitment to taking on high-stakes legal battles to protect the rights and freedoms of everyday Americans. And we’re winning.
New York City’s brazen act isn’t just a violation of the state’s constitution: It’s an election integrity nightmare. Nearly 900,000 noncitizens could be added to New York City’s voter rolls – far more than the deciding margin in last year’s New York Democrat mayoral primary. That means that foreign citizens could have the power to sway our elections one way or another. It shouldn’t be controversial: Only American citizens should vote in American elections.
The Big Apple is the largest city to move toward noncitizen voting, but it’s not the first. Last fall, the RNC sued two Vermont cities trying to allow noncitizens to vote in their municipal elections. The case is still ongoing, but we’re confident that we’ll prevail.
Meanwhile, Democrats in San Jose, California, have voted to study allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections – a move that could add more than 350,000 foreign citizens to Santa Clara County’s voter rolls. If it takes effect, San Jose would become the second California city to allow noncitizens to vote after San Francisco, which has allowed noncitizens to vote in its school board elections since 2016 – a policy opposed by 71% of Americans.
Democrats know they can’t win on their policies. That’s why they’re trying to change the rules of the game.
In Georgia, the RNC intervened in the Biden administration’s politically motivated lawsuit against the state’s election integrity reforms. The state’s new election law includes basic protections like strengthening voter ID, requiring better maintenance of voter rolls, and banning ballot harvesting while expanding early voting hours on weekends. But Biden and Democrats are desperate to force their federal takeover of elections on the American people, so they’re trying to strong-arm Georgians into falling in line with their agenda. The RNC looks forward to defending Georgia’s constitutional right to run its own elections and ensuring that every vote is counted accurately.
And in Arizona, the RNC’s efforts to defend the state’s ballot harvesting ban resulted in a landmark conservative Supreme Court victory with Brnovich v. DNC. When Democrats refused to back down, we went to court again, intervening to defend the Grand Canyon State’s election integrity laws from a baseless Democrat lawsuit. The RNC is also defending similar election integrity reforms in court in Florida, Iowa, and Texas.
We’re not just fighting to protect the vote, though. The RNC wasted no time in taking action against Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate. We sued the Biden administration to ensure that Americans aren’t forced to choose between their jobs and their individual liberties. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked the mandate on businesses from moving forward – a blow to executive overreach and a win for our fundamental freedoms.
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Ronna McDaniel is chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
