Did AOC claim GOP is trying to rig elections by letting only citizens vote? Don’t be fooled

In April 2026, some people on social media (archived) claimed U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “Republicans are trying to rig elections by only allowing U.S. citizens to vote!” The posts did not elaborate on when Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, supposedly said this, or in what context.

The post was shared to other platforms, particularly in videos reacting to the quote attributed to her, such as TikTok (archived), Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived). Snopes readers searched the site and sent us emails asking whether the quote was real.

The quote, however, was not a real statement made by Ocasio-Cortez. Therefore, we’ve rated this claim to be incorrectly attributed to her.

Google searches for Ocasio-Cortez’s name and portions of the the purported quote did not reveal any credible news reports, videos or news releases documenting Ocasio-Cortez saying those words. If she had truly made that statement, reputable news outlets likely would have covered it.

When asked by email whether Ocasio-Cortez said the quote or anything similar, Karla Santillan, Ocasio-Cortez’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 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 claims.