Oklahomans to consider election law change in State Question 834OKLAHOMA CITY — Passed in the final hour of the legislative session, a proposal to more explicitly ban non-U.S. citizens from voting will land on Oklahoma ballots in the Nov. 5 election.State Question 834 would change the Oklahoma Constitution’s definition of eligible voters from “all citizens of the United States” to “only citizens of the United States.”State and federal law already prohibit residents without U.S. citizenship from voting, under threat of a felony conviction. A limited number of cities in other states allow non-citizens to participate in municipal or school board elections but not state or federal elections.Oklahoma is one of eight states with “only citizen voting” propositions on the ballot this November, and 12 other states already enacted this language, according to Americans for Citizen Voting, a national group advocating for outlawing non-citizen voting.Republican lawmakers voted to put SQ 834 on Oklahoma ballots with the hope of preventing non-citizens from ever voting in the state. Authors of the measure said they haven’t seen any evidence of noncitizens attempting to vote in Oklahoma.State Sen. Shane Jett, RShawnee, said it took a “daisy chain of micro-miracles” to pass the measure on May 30, the final day of the legislative session.Jett said he went desk to desk on the Senate floor, lobbying for support for a resolution that would put SQ 834 on the ballot. The resolution had failed to get a committee hearing earlier in session.With enough senators on board, the Senate passed the resolution with a party-line vote of 37-7. Less than an hour later, the state House also approved it 71-11 with its final vote before adjourning for the year. Only Democrats opposed it.“Our concern is if municipalities decide, ‘Well, for whatever reason, we want non-citizens to be able to vote,’ that will no longer be legal, and it’ll be codified in our Constitution,” Jett said. “Therefore, no one can color outside the lines.”Jett said he thought of his wife while advocating for the state question. Ana Jett immigrated to the United States from Brazil in 1999. She became an American citizen in 2007 after six years of filing paperwork, completing interviews, passing a test and paying thousands of dollars.Ana Jett said voting is a “fundamental and exclusive right” of a nation’s citizens. That right, she said, should be protected.“For those of us who will go through the process, we ...
