A superior court judge this month in local school district elections.
Burlington residents Michele Morin and Karen Rowell filed the lawsuit last June with backing from Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, a nonprofit organization that has filed multiple lawsuits nationwide seeking to curtail voting access on the state level, and the .
Morin and Rowell argued that allowing noncitizens 鈥� which includes refugees, asylum seekers and green card holders 鈥� to vote on school budgets and board members violates Vermont鈥檚 Constitution. That鈥檚 because while school budgets in Burlington, and across Vermont, are voted on locally, the state plays a large role in funding them.聽
At the heart of the issue is how the is interpreted. It says voters should be 鈥渁 citizen of the United States鈥� in order to vote on 鈥渁ny matter that concerns the State of Vermont.鈥�
Conservative groups have filed a series of lawsuits focused on whether the three municipalities that have approved noncitizen voting 鈥� Montpelier, Winooski and Burlington 鈥� violated the state constitution when they changed their local charters to implement it.
The . The over Winooski鈥檚 charter change.
The Burlington lawsuit took a slightly different approach. The plaintiffs asked the court to bar noncitizens from voting specifically in education-related matters in local elections, arguing school budget and school board elections were ultimately a state issue and thus allowing non-U.S. citizens to vote on them violated the state鈥檚 constitution.
The City of Burlington asked the court to dismiss the case.
In a ruling issued on Feb. 7, .
鈥淪chool district elections have always been considered municipal, rather than statewide, in nature,鈥� Hoar wrote.
The Burlington case cannot be refiled, but could be appealed.
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