Can Green Card Holders Vote in Local Elections: Cities and Risks

Green card holders can vote in local elections only in a small number of specific cities and towns that have passed laws letting non-citizens cast ballots in races like mayor, city council, or school board. Everywhere else, and in every federal or state race, voting is off-limits and the consequences of doing it anyway are severe. Federal law bans non-citizen voting for President, Vice President, and Congress, but carves out room for local governments to authorize non-citizen voting in their own contests, provided the ballot is structured so no federal race is on it.¹ Most of the country has not taken that option. A few places have.

Cities and Towns That Allow It

The list is short and it changes. Before you register or vote anywhere, confirm the law is still in effect with the local board of elections.

Maryland

Maryland has more municipalities allowing non-citizen voting than any other state. Takoma Park has permitted it for decades. Several Prince George’s County towns followed, including Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Brentwood, Colmar Manor, and Edmonston.² Greenbelt and Frederick also allow non-citizen participation in local elections. Rules vary town to town: in Hyattsville, the voting age for city elections is 16.

Vermont

Montpelier and Winooski allow all residents, regardless of citizenship, to vote in city elections and school district races. The Vermont legislature overrode the governor’s veto to put those charter changes into effect in 2021.³

San Francisco

San Francisco allows non-citizen parents, guardians, or caregivers of children living in the city to vote in Board of Education elections. A California appeals court upheld the program in 2023, ruling that the state constitution’s citizenship requirement applies to state and federal elections, not municipal school board races.⁴ The next eligible election is scheduled for June 2026.

District of Columbia (Check Before You Rely on It)

The D.C. Council passed the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, letting non-citizens who have lived in the District at least 30 days vote for Mayor, D.C. Council, Attorney General, State Board of Education, and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.⁵ The U.S. House passed H.R. 884 in 2025 to repeal it.⁶ As of mid-2025 the bill sat in a Senate committee and had not become law, but confirm the D.C. law is still on the books before registering.

Places That Have Closed the Door

Several states have moved the other direction. In 2024, voters in Iowa, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin approved constitutional amendments limiting voting to U.S. citizens. Texas passed a similar amendment in 2025. These amendments prevent any city or county in those states from creating a non-citizen voting exception.

Courts have done similar work. In March 2025, New York’s Court of Appeals struck down a New York City law that would have let non-citizens vote in municipal elections, holding that the state constitution limits voting to citizens.⁷ A city council passing a non-citizen voting law is not the last word. State constitutions and courts can override it, and a law that existed last year may not exist today.

How to Register and Vote Safely

Cities that allow non-citizen voting use a separate registration process on purpose, so your name never lands on the federal or state voter rolls.

Use the local registration form for your specific city or town, not the National Mail Voter Registration Form. The local form asks for name, residential address, and date of birth, and requires you to affirm your non-citizen status. That affirmation flags your record so you receive ballots only for the races you can legally vote in.² San Francisco’s form also requires you to confirm that you are a parent, guardian, or caregiver of a child living in the city.⁴

Eligibility rules vary but generally require you to be at least 18 on or before election day (16 in Hyattsville), to keep your primary residence inside the city or district, and not to be disqualified for mental incompetence or a felony. Residency requirements are typically 30 days. You submit the form in person at city hall or the elections office, by mail, or through a city-specific portal if one exists. You will get back a local-only voter registration card. If you move out of the jurisdiction, your eligibility ends. If you move into another one that allows non-citizen voting, register again under that city’s rules.

Lawful voting under one of these local programs does not hurt your citizenship application. Form N-400 asks whether you have ever registered to vote or voted, and the instructions tell you: “If you lawfully voted only in a local election where aliens are eligible to vote, you may answer ‘No.'”⁸

How Green Card Holders Get Into Trouble

Most immigration voting problems are not deliberate. They come from three predictable traps.

Automatic voter registration at the DMV. Many states now register people to vote when they get a driver’s license. Some use a back-end system where you are registered unless you return a mailer declining. Others use a front-end system where you have to actively select “no” on a screen. Being registered does not mean you are legally allowed to vote, but casting a ballot after an accidental registration carries the same consequences as deliberate illegal voting.
Combined ballots. Some elections put local and federal races on the same ballot. Voting that ballot, even if you only meant to vote in the local race, creates exposure if the ballot was not structured to keep them separate.
Outdated local laws. A city may pass a non-citizen voting law that a court later strikes down or a state legislature preempts. Voting under a law that no longer exists is unlawful voting.

If a voter registration form, a confirmation card, or a mail-in ballot arrives and you are not certain you are legally eligible for that specific election, do not use it. Call the local board of elections. If the answer is unclear, talk to an immigration attorney before you sign anything or fill in a bubble.

What Happens If You Vote Where You Are Not Authorized

Under federal immigration law, any non-citizen who has voted in violation of any federal, state, or local law is deportable.⁹ Separately, unlawful voting makes a non-citizen inadmissible, which means you cannot re-enter the country, adjust status, or obtain a new green card if yours lapses.¹⁰ Neither consequence requires a criminal conviction. Immigration authorities only need to show you voted where a law restricted voting to citizens.

An unlawful vote can also be treated as evidence that you lack the “good moral character” required to naturalize, blocking citizenship even if you are never placed in removal proceedings. There is generally no waiver for the inadmissibility ground created by unlawful voting. A narrow exception exists for someone whose parents were both U.S. citizens, who lived permanently in the U.S. before age 16, and who reasonably believed they were a citizen when they voted.⁹ That exception does not cover most green card holders.

The federal statute that criminalizes non-citizen voting in federal races carries a fine, up to a year in prison, or both.¹ For a green card holder, the immigration side of the ledger is almost always the worse one. A criminal case ends. A deportation and a permanent bar on citizenship do not.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 611 – Voting by Aliens
2
City of Hyattsville. Voter Information
3
City of Winooski, Vermont. All-Resident Voting
4
San Francisco. Non-Citizen Voting Rights in Local Board of Education Elections
5
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Law 24-242 Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022
6
Congress.gov. H.R. 884 – 119th Congress
7
State of New York Court of Appeals. Court of Appeals Decision – Noncitizen Voting
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Application for Naturalization (Form N-400)
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens