U.S. citizenship is the baseline qualification for voting in American elections, and the relationship between citizenship and voting is built into the Constitution, federal election law, and immigration law all at once. Federal law makes it a crime for any non-citizen to vote in an election for president, vice president, or Congress, and nearly every state extends the same bar to state and local races.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 611 – Voting by Aliens Citizenship is what opens the door. Everything else — age, residency, registration, whether you have a past conviction — decides whether you can walk through it in a given election.
The Constitutional Link Between Citizenship and the Vote
Before 1868, the Constitution had no single definition of who counted as a citizen. The 14th Amendment created one: anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen of both the nation and the state where they live.2Library of Congress. Fourteenth Amendment That definition is the anchor for every voting rights expansion that followed.
Each later amendment protects the vote for “citizens of the United States” and takes away a specific reason a state had used to deny it:
- The 15th Amendment (1870) prohibited denying the vote based on race or previous condition of servitude.3Library of Congress. Fifteenth Amendment
- The 19th Amendment (1920) did the same for sex.4Library of Congress. Nineteenth Amendment
- The 24th Amendment (1964) banned poll taxes in federal elections.5U.S. Government Publishing Office. Twenty-Fourth Amendment
- The 26th Amendment (1971) guaranteed the vote to citizens 18 and older.6Constitution Center. 26th Amendment – Right to Vote at Age 18
The pattern is consistent. The Constitution treats voting as a right that belongs to citizens, and each amendment widens the circle of which citizens can exercise it.
What Citizenship Gets You at the Polls, and What It Doesn’t
Being a citizen makes you eligible to vote, not automatically qualified to cast a ballot in any given election. Every state layers a few more requirements on top.
Age
You must be at least 18 years old on or before Election Day. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will turn 18 by the general election.7USAGov. Who Can and Cannot Vote Almost every state lets you register before your 18th birthday as long as you will be 18 by Election Day.
Residency
You need to live in the state, and usually the specific district, where you plan to vote. For presidential elections, federal law caps the residency requirement at 30 days before the election.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 10502 – Residence Requirements for Voting State and local requirements vary but tend to be short.
Registration
Nearly every state requires you to register before you can vote. Under the National Voter Registration Act, states must accept registration forms submitted at least 30 days before an election, and many set shorter deadlines.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC Chapter 205 – National Voter Registration Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia allow same-day registration. North Dakota is the only state with no voter registration requirement at all; eligible residents show up with a qualifying ID on Election Day.
The Federal Ban on Non-Citizen Voting
Federal law makes it a crime for any non-citizen to vote in an election for federal office. Penalties include fines, up to one year of imprisonment, or both. A narrow exception protects non-citizens who were raised by citizen parents, grew up in the United States, and reasonably believed they were citizens when they voted.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 611 – Voting by Aliens
The federal ban reaches only federal elections. A small number of local jurisdictions have carved out exceptions permitting non-citizens to vote in municipal races. As of early 2026, certain municipalities in Maryland, Vermont, and California, along with the District of Columbia, permit non-citizens to vote in some or all local elections such as city council and school board races. These exceptions are rare and are authorized under state or local law.
Immigration Consequences If a Non-Citizen Votes
For a non-citizen living in the United States, unlawful voting carries a second layer of consequences beyond the criminal penalty. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a non-citizen who votes in violation of any federal, state, or local election law becomes both inadmissible and deportable.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens Inadmissibility means you cannot enter the country or adjust your immigration status. Deportability means the government can begin removal proceedings against you even if you are a lawful permanent resident.
These provisions, added by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, apply retroactively to anyone who voted unlawfully on or after September 30, 1996. A conviction is not required for the immigration consequences to attach; the act of voting itself triggers both grounds. For a lawful permanent resident working toward naturalization, an unlawful voting incident can also derail the good moral character finding on a citizenship application. The same narrow exception from the criminal statute applies here: non-citizens raised by citizen parents who lived permanently in the United States before age 16 and reasonably believed they were citizens are protected from both inadmissibility and deportability.
Citizenship Keeps the Vote Even When You Live Abroad
Because voting rights follow citizenship rather than residence, U.S. citizens keep the vote in federal elections when they move overseas. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, enacted in 1986, protects the right of active-duty members of the armed forces and Merchant Marine, their eligible spouses and dependents, and any U.S. citizen residing outside the country to vote in federal elections by absentee ballot.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 20301 – Federal Responsibilities
Eligible voters use the Federal Post Card Application to register and request an absentee ballot from their home state, and the Federal Voting Assistance Program recommends submitting the form annually.13Federal Voting Assistance Program. Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) A Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot works as a backup if your regular ballot does not arrive in time. The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009 requires that ballots be mailed to overseas voters at least 45 days before a federal election. Citizens born abroad who have never lived in the United States can vote in the state where their parents last resided or were registered.
When Citizens Lose Voting Rights
Citizenship makes you eligible to vote, but it does not make that eligibility permanent. States can restrict voting for certain citizens, and they do it most often in two situations: felony convictions and judicial findings of mental incapacity.
Felony Convictions
Forty-eight states strip voting rights from citizens convicted of a felony during at least the period of incarceration. Only Maine and Vermont let citizens vote while serving a prison sentence, and the District of Columbia also permits incarcerated citizens to vote. Once a person leaves prison, the rules diverge.
- About 23 states restore voting rights as soon as a person leaves prison, with no waiting period or application required.
- Roughly 15 states keep voting rights suspended through parole and probation, then restore them automatically once the full sentence is finished.
- Around 10 states require additional steps for some or all felony convictions, ranging from petitioning a court to waiting a set number of years after sentence completion to seeking a governor’s pardon.
Automatic restoration is a bit misleading in practice. Even in states that restore your rights the moment you are released, you still have to re-register through the normal process. Nobody puts you back on the rolls for you. Many people with past convictions are legally eligible to vote but assume they are not because no one has told them their rights have been restored.
Mental Incapacity
A less common path to disenfranchisement runs through guardianship proceedings. About ten states have constitutions that explicitly bar people under full guardianship from voting. In others, a probate judge decides whether a person under guardianship retains enough capacity to vote. The standard is not uniform. Some states require a specific finding that the person cannot understand the voting process; others presume incapacity for anyone placed under guardianship. A growing number of states use a narrower test focused on whether the person can communicate a desire to vote, with or without accommodations.
Getting Voting Rights Back
If you have lost voting rights through a felony conviction, the path back depends entirely on where you live. In states with automatic restoration, you become eligible the moment you are released from prison or complete parole and probation, and you re-register like any other voter. In states that require affirmative steps, it can be significantly harder. Virginia requires individuals to apply for rights restoration, and the governor has authority over those decisions. Mississippi requires either a governor’s pardon or a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the state legislature for certain serious offenses. Kentucky limits restoration to executive pardon. If you are unsure of your status, your state’s election office or secretary of state website will have the current rules and the steps to register.