In the days leading up to last week’s election, signs posted around Santa Ana showed a community divided over whether Non-citizen residents should be allowed to vote. in local races.

“Strengthen our democracy,” said lawn signs, in English and Spanish, in support of Measure DD.

“Defend the rights of citizens,” read opposition banners hanging on billboards throughout the city.

When casting his vote at the Orange County Registrar of Voters, Juan Molina said that although he is not prejudiced against undocumented people, he believes that the right to vote should be reserved for citizens.

“You have to be a US citizen. “We all go through steps to become American citizens,” said Molina, 61.

That perspective ultimately carried the day, with 60% of voters rejecting the measure that would have been the first in Southern California to grant voting rights to noncitizens.

Santa Ana, which won more votes for Vice President Kamala Harris than for President-elect Donald Trump, is a predominantly Latino community of about 310,000 people. But experts say the votes against Measure DD may indicate that voters, especially Latinos, are changing their attitudes about immigration.

“This is in line with trends we’ve been seeing in both polls and elections of the Latino community becoming more conservative on immigration issues,” said Jon Gould, Dean of the School of Social Ecology at UC Irvine.

It may also reflect how naturalized voters view citizenship, a years and expensive legal status to obtain.

“Nationally, there is a growing sense that citizenship matters. It is a process that must be respected,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant with experience in Latino vote trends.

Measure DD also hit the ballot during an election season charged with anti-immigrant rhetoric as the Republican Party punished the Biden-Harris administration for illegal border crossings. Trump and other Republicans spread misinformation about Non-citizens who vote illegally in federal elections. to skew the results in favor of Democrats, despite laws and decades of studies questioning allegations of voter fraud.

republicans introduced legislation in Congress this year that would have required states to obtain proof of U.S. citizenship when people register to vote. It was unsuccessful, but several GOP-controlled states included similar measures on the winning ballot. Voters approved measures last week in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin to explicitly prohibit non-citizens from voting in state and local elections.

Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in presidential elections, and those who commit voter fraud can face prison or deportation.

However, federal law allows states to set their own state and local election rules, which could include allowing noncitizens to vote in limited local elections, such as school board or city council elections. And two Northern California cities are among several nationwide that already allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections.

San Francisco passed Proposition N in 2016 to allow Non-citizens with children under 18 can vote in school board elections. Proposition N passed after two other similar measures were rejected in 2004 and 2010.

Oakland also passed a measure in 2022 allowing non-citizens to vote in school board elections, but the law has not yet been signed into law.

Both measures faced legal challenges from a conservative legal group, which abandoned the fight after the First District Court of Appeals ruled last August that the laws did not rape the California Constitution.

Measure DD would have amended the Santa Ana City Charter to allow non-citizens to vote ahead of the November 2028 general municipal election for city council seats.

The measure faced strong opposition from local officials and conservative groups such as the Policy Issues Institute, who said it would be costly and litigious, and disrupt citizens’ rights.

Carlos Perea, an immigrant rights advocate who supported the measure, said those groups “pressed the panic button.” The results, Perea added, reflect Trump’s influence in a year in which the former president campaigned strongly against illegal immigration.

“In context, we had this growing anti-immigrant, nativist, fascist rhetoric in the country,” said Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice.

The campaign for the measure, which defined non-citizens as undocumented tax-paying people and green card holders, said it would allow for fairer elections, evoking the centuries-old motto “no taxation without representation.”

Perea said he was proud of the work he and other activists, including Latino and Vietnamese advocacy groups, did to get the measure on the ballot. He noted that they would continue trying to pass the measure in future elections, pointing to the case of San Francisco. Proposition N as an example.

“We are ready to introduce this again in the near future,” Perea said.