U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said, “Republicans are trying to rig elections by only allowing U.S. citizens to vote.”
Throughout 2026, a claim circulated online that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “Republicans are trying to rig elections by only allowing U.S. citizens to vote.” Social media users who shared the alleged quote did not say when the New York Democrat supposedly said this or in what context.
For example, in August, the manager of a popular Facebook account shared the rumor (archived), adding, in part: “According to AOC, requiring voters to actually be U.S. citizens is somehow ‘rigging’ elections. This isn’t a slip of the tongue — it’s the Democratic Party’s blueprint laid bare.”
Other examples of the claim were posted on X and TikTok in April, Threads in June, and elsewhere on Facebook in July.
Snopes readers have repeatedly searched our site and emailed us asking whether the New York lawmaker authentically said the remark.
In short, Ocasio-Cortez never produced these words. Therefore, we’ve rated this quote as being incorrectly attributed to her.
Google searches for Ocasio-Cortez’s name and portions of the purported quote did not reveal any credible news reports, videos or news releases documenting her saying those words. If she had truly made that statement, reputable news media outlets likely would have covered it.
When asked by email whether Ocasio-Cortez said the quote or anything similar, Karla Santillan, the New York representative’s press secretary, said, “She did not say that.”
In February 2023, Ocasio-Cortez argued on the House floor against a Republican-led effort to prevent the D.C. Council from passing a law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections in the nation’s capital. While the House of Representatives passed a bill designed to block the law, the Senate did not. As a result, Washington, D.C., became one of a handful of municipalities around the country to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.
During the House debate over the measure, Ocasio-Cortez argued for D.C.’s right to pass its own laws without meddling from Congress. She did not argue that it was necessary for noncitizens to vote, or that laws allowing only citizens to vote were “rigging” elections. What she said in full was:
It is so rich to hear the other side discuss the sacred right of voting, discuss what our veterans and our service members fought for, and the sacred right of voting while defending and continuing to defend the disenfranchisement of American citizens in D.C. for their right to vote.
They don’t believe in statehood. They don’t believe in the actual enfranchisement and voting rights for D.C. residents who are U.S. citizens.
Yet, they have the audacity and the gall to not just continue in that position and claim they believe in the sacred right to vote while denying that right to vote to an overwhelmingly Black city, but then expanding their position — expanding their position — so that, in direct contradiction of their “conservative” values of small government and defending freedom, they have decided to expand the jurisdiction of this body to meddle into the business of D.C. residents.
The D.C. Council has the right to determine its policies for D.C. residents. If any member of this body does not like that, they can feel free to change their registration, resign their post and run for D.C. Council.
For those who are residents here of Washington, D.C., they could have gone, as the ranking member state, to any of the many hearings on this issue.
I understand that there may be disagreement. I understand that Republicans may not be happy with what the D.C. Council is doing, but when cities in Vermont pass the same provisions, when San Francisco, when nine Maryland cities brought up this provision, did the Republican Party corral all of Congress and bring this issue down to the floor for a vote?
No, they did not.
They are singling out the residents of the District of Columbia and expanding in the history of disenfranchisement that goes all the way back to the legacy of slavery, and they are bringing it right here to this floor. Because why? They don’t have any real bills to debate. We are not here to talk about health care; we are not here to talk about abortion; we are not here to talk about voting rights. We are here to talk about the expansion and the continued subjugation and disenfranchisement of the people of the District of Columbia. Let them govern themselves.
Ocasio-Cortez is frequently the target of many claims regarding what she has done or said. We’ve previously fact-checked a number of these rumors.
Snopes previously fact-checked this claim in April 2026. We’re fact-checking it again due to the continued spread of the rumor and renewed reader interest.
