The Fourteenth Amendment, which spells out the basic qualifications for being eligible to vote in U.S. elections, contains references to both citizens and persons in the United States.  This provides adequate justification for determining which persons are citizens.  (Justice Roberts doesn't seem to agree.  On the other hand, it doesn't matter if the question is on the Census or not because illegals can just lie, as they did about seeking asylum.)  What will be important and even crucial is to have a way to determine if a given person is a citizen at voting time.

From 14A, Section 2: "But when the right to vote at any election ... is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged ... the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

(Amendment 15 clarified that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, even though the 14A text didn't say anything about those traits being disqualifying.  Amendment 19 added "sex" [not gender].  Amendment 24 added failure to pay poll or other tax.)

So Amendment 14 in combination with 15, 19, and 24 makes it unconstitutional for any state to deny or abridge the right of citizens to vote in elections.  There is no amendment that includes foreign nationals, legally resident or not, in the pool of eligible voters.  They do not have the right to vote.  And when they exercise the loopholes that allow them to vote and be counted, they potentially counteract the votes of legal citizens.  Sounds like abridgment to me.

The reference to "right to vote" is limited not to protecting your right to go through the process of casting a vote, but to having the vote be fully counted, not just enumerated.  When your vote is partially annulled by an illegally cast vote, your vote counts less.  "One citizen, one vote" is the expectation, not "one citizen, 0.999 votes."

The only way to come close to ensuring that foreign nationals do not vote is to demand proof of citizenship at voting time.  Motor voter laws let people register to vote when they get their driver's licenses, and while some driver's licenses (Real ID and Enhanced Driver's Licenses) require and show proof of citizenship, sometimes the voter registration occurs anyway.  According to this site, the Real ID act should mean that non-citizens cannot even get state-issued IDs or driver's licenses.  Yet they do.  And not all states require that an ID be shown in order to vote.

We need to know who is not a citizen when it comes time to vote.  Personally, I'd like to see the Constitution amended to remove the dependency of representation on persons rather than citizens.  Why should encouraging illegal immigration provide a political payoff?  Nor should states get more federal funds based on having more illegally resident moochers and job thieves.

We used to be a generous nation.  At this point, we're just a nation of chumps.

Sam can be reached at syounnokis@gmail.com.