Do yourself a favor and don’t read the article comments. I lived in NYC for many years as a teacher, and it’s crazy to me that many of my families couldn’t vote, even though their lives and their kids’ lives were significantly impacted by local elections.
Yep the comments on that article are garbage for sure. Here in the EU it is at least pretty common that non citizens can vote in local elections, at the very least citizens of other EU countries. And I don’t really see a reason third country immigrants shouldn’t also be allowed in these elections. Citizenship is pretty arbitrary, access to democratic institutions really shouldn’t be arbitrary, especially if these institutions are very important for the people who can’t vote for them.
I mean obviously “Taxation without Representation” is one of the foundational injustices which led to the declaration of independence, so I’m in favor for letting non-citizen residents vote. But if the state constitution says voting is only for citizens then maybe the state constitution needs to be amended…
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Do yourself a favor and don’t read the article comments. I lived in NYC for many years as a teacher, and it’s crazy to me that many of my families couldn’t vote, even though their lives and their kids’ lives were significantly impacted by local elections.
Yep the comments on that article are garbage for sure. Here in the EU it is at least pretty common that non citizens can vote in local elections, at the very least citizens of other EU countries. And I don’t really see a reason third country immigrants shouldn’t also be allowed in these elections. Citizenship is pretty arbitrary, access to democratic institutions really shouldn’t be arbitrary, especially if these institutions are very important for the people who can’t vote for them.
I mean obviously “Taxation without Representation” is one of the foundational injustices which led to the declaration of independence, so I’m in favor for letting non-citizen residents vote. But if the state constitution says voting is only for citizens then maybe the state constitution needs to be amended…
A few states do have provisions for letting non-citizens vote in local elections: https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States