Can illegal aliens vote?

1. Legal framework: a federal ban with teeth

Congress long ago made voting in federal contests a citizenship-based right and criminalized noncitizen participation: 18 U.S.C. §611 makes it unlawful for “any alien to vote” in elections that select federal officers, and the statute was strengthened in the 1996 immigration reforms ^{[1] [5]}. The ban is not merely symbolic—violations can trigger fines and prison time under criminal law and can lead to immigration consequences such as inadmissibility or deportation under 8 U.S.C. provisions, a consequence repeatedly noted by legal analysts and the Congressional Research Service ^{[4] [3]}.

2. The state-and-local patchwork: exceptions at the municipal level

While no state permits noncitizens to vote in federal or statewide contests, local governments have carved out limited exceptions: at least a dozen municipalities—most notably in Maryland and the District of Columbia—have authorized noncitizen participation in certain local elections, such as school board or city council races, and other cities have considered but often rejected similar measures ^{[2] [6]}. Ballotpedia documents a national trend of states and localities wrestling with citizenship requirements, including multiple state constitutional amendments aiming to require citizenship for voting in state and local elections ^[7].

3. Reality on the ground: rare occurrences, intensive scrutiny

Independent audits and academic reviews conclude that noncitizen voting in U.S. elections is extremely uncommon: Migration Policy and other analysts describe documented cases as rare relative to the electorate, even as partisan rhetoric periodically inflates the scale of the problem ^{[2] [3]}. Bipartisan Policy Center researchers identified dozens of instances over decades but emphasize they are not widespread; courts and prosecutors have pursued some high-profile cases, underscoring that while rare, illegal voting does occur ^[3]. At the same time, efforts to root out noncitizen registration have sometimes produced false positives and harmed naturalized citizens—a risk highlighted by election officials’ own recounting of registration purges ^[2].

4. Politics, misinformation, and competing narratives

Claims that “illegal aliens” are voting en masse have become a political cudgel, with pundits and some politicians asserting systemic fraud; reputable fact-checking and news outlets counter that there is little evidence of large-scale illegal noncitizen voting in federal races ^{[8] [9]}. That mismatch between political claims and audit-based findings creates incentives for both alarmist narratives—useful to those advocating strict election laws—and for advocates who argue the problem is negligible and that targeted remedies could disenfranchise lawful voters ^{[8] [2]}.

5. Consequences for those who do vote unlawfully

The law is explicit about penalties: criminal fines and prison exposure are possible for unlawful voting, and immigration statutes treat illegal voting as a serious ground for deportation or inadmissibility, with courts holding that ignorance of the law is not always a defense ^{[3] [4]}. Local jurisdictions that permit noncitizen voting carefully limit those rights to avoid federal conflicts, but noncitizens who vote in federal or state contests risk prosecution and immigration consequences ^{[1] [6]}.

6. Bottom line: clear legal ban, narrow local exceptions, rare violations

The concise answer is: illegal aliens cannot vote in federal elections and are generally barred from state-level voting; a small number of localities lawfully allow some noncitizen voting in limited municipal contests, but incidents of noncitizen voting in broader elections are uncommon and, when they occur, can trigger criminal and immigration penalties ^{[1] [2] [4] [6]}. Reporting that treats isolated cases as evidence of systemic fraud overstates what audits and legal analyses have documented ^{[3] [8]}.