NY Magazine Reverses Stance, Now Defends Noncitizen Voting Rights
New York Magazine moved from calling noncitizen voting a phantom threat to championing it, spotlighting a defeated NYC law that would have let about 800,000 noncitizens vote locally.
In February, New York Magazine ran a headline that portrayed the GOP’s push for the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, as a baseless panic over an "imaginary" noncitizen voting problem. Seven months later, columnist Zak Cheney-Rice published a piece treating the phenomenon as a concrete issue, focusing on New York City’s Local Law 11, a proposal that would have permitted roughly 800,000 noncitizens—including lawful permanent residents and workers with at least 30 days of residency—to vote in local elections before the state’s highest court struck it down.
Cheney-Rice uses councilman Ydanis Rodriguez’s story—who could not vote until naturalized in 2000—to argue that denying noncitizens the ballot denies them dignity and respect, likening opposition to the Confederates’ historic voting bans. The article also cites a 1986 school-board election where newly registered Dominican immigrants helped elect a candidate, suggesting noncitizen voting can shift resources toward immigrant communities. While briefly acknowledging arguments for citizenship-only voting, the piece concludes that allowing noncitizens to vote is a moral imperative, portraying the magazine’s earlier "imaginary" claim as partisan propaganda.
Why it matters
The shift illustrates how media framing can reshape public opinion on voting rights and immigration policy.
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