This November, Kentucky voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution that bans people who are not U.S. citizens from voting in Kentucky elections.Rep. Nima Kulkarni worries this amendment may have unintended consequences such as disenfranchising new, naturalized Americans from voting and U.S. born Americans who do not have documents proving citizenship."How do you prove your citizenship? I was naturalized when I was 14. I have a certificate of naturalization from the government, but if you were born here, you can show it by your birth certificate. You can show it by having a US passport, which a lot of individuals don't have," Kulkarni said. "US born individuals don't necessarily just have passports. It's $130 to apply for one, so that's usually not the first document that people have. There's also an issue of people not having their birth certificates. There's a significant number of individuals, millions nationwide, and it's probably proportional here in Kentucky, who don't have access to their birth certificate.""These are difficult documents to obtain. When you start thinking about people that have no resources, that have a real lack of connection to these resources and would not even know how to get those documents, you're effectively disenfranchising all of those individuals who have nothing to do with immigration," she added. "They are US born citizens. They're eligible to vote and yet, they're not going to be able to vote because of documentary requirements, which could be enacted on a state and local level because of this amendment."Now, there is no documentary requirement in Kentucky right now, but Kulkarni worries that Amendment 1 "opens the door to state level legislation where you have to prove your citizenship."Ahead of the election, supporters of Amendment 1 said that they worried that local cities may allow non-citizens to vote in local races, like those for school boards, in the future. In a September press conference, supporters said that they're trying to take preventive action.We dont want illegal immigrants or non-citizens voting in Kentucky elections, like they have in some other states," said Rep. Michael Meredith, who sponsored the amendment in the Kentucky House this year. "Not in state elections, not in federal elections, but theyre doing it at the local level. Voting in local elections. Theyre voting in school board elections.Meredith points to cities like San Francisco as evidence that other parts of the country are allowing non-citizens to vote in school board elections. He believes that all voting should be reserved for citizens."Citizens should be making the decisions about how the government is handled," said Meredith. "If you want to become a citizen, theres a pathway to that.Whats more important than the sanctity of our elections in the United States - very little," he later added. "Its the foundation of our democracy.But according to state election officials, there is no evidence showing that non-citizens are voting in Kentucky. To vote in Kentucky elections, a registered voter must be a U.S. citizen that has lived in Kentucky for at least 28 days before Election Day. Federal law already makes it a criminal offense for a non-citizen to vote in a presidential election.So, Kulkarni worries the impact of Amendment 1 will be felt by US born citizens."The general consequence is going to be disenfranchisement of US citizen voters, not new American voters, just US born voters from the polls, because that's been the result in states that have attempted to purge those rolls. They have not been able to purge non-citizen voters because they don't exist," said Kulkarni. "So, you'll see disenfranchisement of a lot of individuals in Kentucky because they don't have access to the documentation that they need to prove citizenship. We will have to put into place some process for proving citizenship."