Santa Ana residents to decide whether noncitizens can vote in local elections — Orange County Register

By Destiny Torres, Orange County Register

Santa Ana voters will be asked to decide in next year’s Nov. 5 election whether noncitizens will be allowed to vote in local elections by 2028.

Councilmembers Johnathan Hernandez, Benjamin Vazquez, Jessie Lopez and Thai Viet Phan voted to place the question before voters during the general election. Councilmembers Phil Bacerra and David Penaloza, and Mayor Valerie Amezcua, voted against the item on Tuesday.

“Voting in a local election is not an unlawful act if the applicant is eligible to vote under the relevant law,” Hernandez said, quoting a policy from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “What is being asked today is for the voters to be the deciders.”

Noncitizen residents make up about 24% of Santa Ana’s population, Vazquez and Hernandez said, quoting from U.S. Census Bureau statistics. And immigrant residents, including noncitizens, in Orange County contributed $10.5 billion in taxes in 2018, according to the American Immigration Council.

But noncitizens can’t vote in the local elections that affect their everyday lives, said Vazquez and Hernandez.

If voters say yes, the measure would mean the city’s charter would be amended to authorize and implement noncitizen voting in municipal elections.