Should non-citizens be allowed to vote in municipal elections?

[december]

Apparently, it's legal for non-citizens to vote in certain municipalities. According to Michelle Malkin,

Elsewhere, noncitizen voting is not merely overlooked. It is encouraged. Here in my home county of Montgomery County, Md., five municipalities allow noncitizens (with no distinction between legal and illegal aliens) to cast ballots in local elections: Takoma Park, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Martin's Additions and Barnesville. Last month, Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams endorsed a similar proposal championed by Hispanic activists. "I'm committed to expanding the franchise," Williams said in explaining why citizenship should be thrown out the window as the standard for voting eligibility.

I was quite surprised to learn this. Is it a good idea to allow non-citizen residents to vote in municipal elections? Should the practice be expanded?

[andros]

Yup. Nope.

[Sparc]

Agree, disagree with andros.

[Opengrave]

No. Bad idea. Too much room for abuse. I can see the situation where a city of 100,000 people has 1,000,000 votes cast.

[Eva Luna]

I'd say yes to allowing LEGAL aliens to vote in state and municipal elections. There is no requirement for legal aliens ever to become citizens, and they pay taxes and deal with the results of elections just like anyone else, so why the hell not?

[UDS]

It shows my ignorance, I suppose, but it surprises me that non-US citizens are not eligible to vote in some municipal elections in the US, or that this should be a matter of controversy. Municipal governments provide services to all residents, regardless of nationality, and they pay for these services with taxes raised from all residents, again without regard to nationality. Why should nationality be at all relevant to the democratic control of municipal governments?

Different issues arise where the federal government is concerned. True, it taxes all US residents and provides services to all, but it also addresses matters such as war, foreign relations, constitutional issues and matters which concern the nation, as a nation, in a way which a municipal government doesn’t. So I could see why the federal franchise should be restricted to US citizens. But I can’t see that those arguments extend to municipal governments.

For the record, in my country (Ireland)

- all residents can vote in local elections, without regard to nationality

- the franchise in national parliamentary elections is confined to resident Irish citizens, and to residents of other EU member states which accord reciprocal voting rights to Irish citizens,

- the franchise in presidential elections and constitutional referenda is confined to resident Irish citizens, and

- the franchise in EU parliamentary elections is confined to resident EU citizens.

[JDM]

Under laws currently in development here in Russia, I will be able to vote in at least the local elections. Back in high school when I was protesting the Vietnam war and people called me a communist, I doubt if they thought I would end up able to vote for real Russky communists! (Not that there are that many left here, and those that are are pretty bedraggled. OTOH Stalin's grandson ran for the legislature a couple of years ago, on the Stalinist party ticket. He grew a moustache and looked a lot like granddad.)
As to the OP, I tend to agree with the "local yes federal no" answer to this question. JDM

[JDM]

You know, I went and read Michelle Malkin's article linked in the OP, and she does do a good job of setting up her "myriad" two examples in order to "belie the din of "disenfranchisement," that is, the 91,000 voters who were illegally purged from the Florida voter rolls. Very impressive. Typically GOP. Sort of like the "massive voter fraud" in South Dakota. You remember, from last week- 15 improperly filled out applications for absentee ballots, and no improperly cast votes. Very massive, indeed.
Another nice touch was the

controversial University of South Florida Islamic professor with long-alleged ties to terrorism.

Hell, George Herbert Walker Bush has long-alleged ties to terrorism. Not to mention the long-alleged ties that Prescott Bush had to slave labor in Auschwitz. And the long-alleged ties that George Walker Bush has to the bin Laden family. And we daren't forget the long-alleged ties of GHW and GW to the Reverend Moon, who hates America. Damn- I can think of all sorts of long-alleged ties.
JDM

In my previous post I said that "I doubt if they thought I would end up able to vote for real Russky communists!" Now that I think about it, most of the people in my home town were "Go back to Russia where you belong, pussy!" types. I guess they did think that I would end up here, and they were right. Hmmm....

[Odesio]

Originally posted by december
Apparently, it's legal for non-citizens to vote in certain municipalities. According to Michelle Malkin, I was quite surprised to learn this. Is it a good idea to allow non-citizen residents to vote in municipal elections? Should the practice be expanded?

No, I don't see why anyone who isn't a citizen should be allowed to vote in any federal, state, or local election. If voting is really that important to a resident alien then they can jump through the hoops and go through the citizenship process.

Marc

[Duck Duck Goose]

An discussion of Maryland's municipal election code.
http://www.mdmunicipal.org/elections.htm

Three decades ago the U. S. Supreme Court mandated that no government may deny a resident the right to register to vote for a period longer than necessary to determine valid residency, which is normally 30 days or less (Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 30 (1972)). Municipalities may keep their voter registration books open until as late as Election Day if they choose to use a supplemental list in addition to the county list.

Often questions arise concerning residency for both voters and candidates for municipal office. Maryland Courts define residence as meaning “domicile.” Domicile is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary (6th Ed.) as “[t]he permanent residence of a person or the place to which he intends to return even though he may actually reside elsewhere.” A person can have several dwelling places but only one domicile designated as his or her intended primary legal residence. The controlling factor in determining domicile is a person’s intent, which can be shown objectively by numerous factors that include where a person actually lives or where s/he votes as well as where taxes are paid, where mail is received, the location of addresses listed on contracts and other documents like bank accounts and licenses, and where personal belongings are kept and property is owned.

I don't have any problem with non-citizens voting in municipal elections, because a municipal election isn't deciding policy for the country as a whole--it affects only, say, Decatur, Illinois. If Decatur had, say, a liquor ordinance come up, or a local bond referendum, I wouldn't have any problem with non-U.S. citizens voting on it because they live here and they have to live with the consequences of their decision. And if they move away, well, so what? American citizens sometimes help vote in the new blue laws or school tax hike and then move away, too.

[hijack]

Michelle's statement here is misleading:

Here in my home county of Montgomery County, Md., five municipalities allow noncitizens (with no distinction between legal and illegal aliens) to cast ballots in local elections: Takoma Park, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Martin's Additions and Barnesville. Last month, Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams endorsed a similar proposal championed by Hispanic activists. "I'm committed to expanding the franchise," Williams said in explaining why citizenship should be thrown out the window as the standard for voting eligibility.

She's ignoring the fact that in Maryland municipal elections at least, citizenship has already been "thrown out the window" as a standard for voting eligibility.

And this is just stupid:

In 1993, the federal Motor Voter law "expanded the franchise" for political expediency, and exacerbated the perilous trend of lowering the safeguards for voting that continues to undermine the value of U.S. citizenship today.

Um, she's saying that the Motor Voter Act is solely responsible for the flood of election fraud the American people is currently (not) suffering? Checking both CNN.com and GoogleNews for "election fraud" and "voter fraud" for yesterday's election brings up only this from Madison County, North Carolina, from last Saturday, involving 50 absentee ballots that turned up in somebody's home, and this, which involves the possibility that one (1) person in Tangipahoa Parish may have voted illegally under someone else's name.

I mean, whoa. The entire American electoral system is tottering...


The only people I can find offhand who think that the Motor Voter Act is responsible for massive voter fraud are various anti-Clinton right-wing Republican commentators.

They bring up irrelevancies, such as "were the hijackers registered to vote?"
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaf...itch_1001.html


Most of these examples are all from before the Motor Voter bill was passed.
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/publicat...oter_fraud.asp

This is just stupid, too.
http://nj.npri.org/nj99/02/vote.htm

Motor Voter:
A Dismal Failure
by Randall D. LLoyd

The Progressive movement’s attempts in the 1870s and beyond to reform political party domination of elections and accompanying fraud led to government control of the voting process. Voter registration, officially printed ballots and secret ballots were attempts to rid elections of fraud and coercion. Over 100 years later, when the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was passed in 1993, control of fraud was a far distant secondary concern. The act—also called Motor Voter—may even have turned back the clock, reintroducing fraud to American elections.

I mean, come ONNNN, Randall, election fraud is nothing new--people have been "helping" other people fill out their ballots, and paying people to vote a certain way, and registering dead people, and registering under false names, ever since the Republic was founded. It's silly to blame all voter fraud on the Motor Voter bill.

And this is REALLY stupid.
http://www.behindtheheadlines.org/20.../01-0715b.html

Motor Voter Law Encourages Fraud

by: F.R. Duplantier
"The right to vote is not a trinket for politicians to give away to strangers who have no love or loyalty to America."

"Did noncitizens, voting last November, influence the outcome of the last election?" asks Edward Nelson of United States Border Control. "With hundreds of thousands of noncitizens, including illegal aliens, voting throughout the country, there is no question about it," he asserts. "The election or defeat of candidates for Congress, the U.S. Senate, governors, mayors, city councilmen, and, yes, even the President of the United States was influenced dramatically by noncitizens voting illegally in U.S. elections!"

Nelson charges that "the National Voter Registration Act, more commonly known as the Motor-Voter law, has been a primary vehicle for massive voter fraud in the United States. Under the Motor-Voter law, anyone applying for a driver's license is asked if he would also like to register to vote. And, under the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights sent out directives to every state motor vehicle agency warning employees not to ask applicants if they were U.S. citizens, because this would be a violation of their civil rights."

Yes, I remember how all those illegal aliens flocked to the polls in 2000 and voted in gratitude for Clinton's Democratic Party, which is why Al Gore is president..

Oh wait.

And they're using this story of the woman who registered her dog as a joke to prove their point about how frighteningly easy it is for illegal aliens and dead people and potential hijackers to register to vote, but what it also proves is that there are stiff legal penalties for those who dick around with the system.

Not finding her experiment either humorous or instructive, Briscoe was charged by the state of Maryland with false registration for "willfully and knowingly violat[ing] the voter registration law by falsifying a name and misrepresenting facts on a registration."

Charges, which carried a prison sentence of up to five years and/or $1,000 fine, were dropped this week after Briscoe agreed to community service next Election Day.

Congress has actually addressed the problems of the American voting system, and a fix is in the works, although it doesn't involve repealing the Evil Clinton's Motor Voter Act, and strangely, it doesn't address the issue of those thousands of illegal aliens, potential hijackers, registered dogs and dead people, and multiple registrations. It's just to replace the voting machines and make sure that voters who show up at the polling place are who they say they are. Are we to believe that Congress is ignoring this issue because they were all voted into office by illegal aliens and the Dead People vote? Or is it maybe just because everybody, both GOP and Dems, agrees that it's a Good Thing to get people registered to vote?

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/....ap/index.html

Bush signs voting bill
Legislation won't impact midterm election
Tuesday, October 29, 2002 Posted: 11:42 AM EST (1642 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One week before Election Day, President Bush signed legislation Tuesday revamping the nation's voting system and guarding against the kinds of errors that threw his own election into dispute two years ago

< snip >

Under the "Help America Vote Act," states will receive $3.9 billion in federal money over the next three years to replace outdated punch-card and lever voting machines or improve voter education and poll-worker training.

< snip >

Beginning January 1, first-time voters who registered by mail will be required to provide identification when they show up at the polls.

By the 2004 vote, states will be required to provide provisional ballots to voters whose names do not appear on voter rolls. Those provisional ballots would counted once valid registration is verified.

For 2006 balloting, states will be required to maintain computerized, statewide voter registration lists linked to their driver's license databases. States will also be required to have voting machines that allow voters to confirm the way they marked their ballot -- and, if necessary, change their votes -- before they are finally cast.

Ultimately it doesn't matter how many illegal aliens or dead people or dogs or people named "John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith" may be on the voter rolls, because when they finally show up to vote, they all have to prove that they are who they say they are.

[/hijack]

[Duck Duck Goose]

And why on earth would someone who was in the country illegally do something as dumb as call attention to himself by showing up to vote?

Chutzpah. That's what it would take--chutzpah.

[Siege]

december, I legally immigrated to the US with my family when I was 2 1/2, and became a naturalized citizen at 21. As such, I grew up with an awareness of the extra legal concerns an immigrant faces. This is the first I've read that non-citizens are allowed to vote in US elections, and I'd like to see the actual law which says so, rather than a columnist's opinion. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that this is totally contrary to what I was taught in American schools from grade school onward.

Having said all that, I'm actually going to come in on december's side for a change. Yes, the naturalization process takes months of bureaucratic hassle, but there should be some benefit to it, other than having to worry a bit less about the INS. Also, if you care enough to want to influence the government of this country by voting, you should care enough to go through this step. I suspect the rest of my family would agree with me on this, even though they were naturalized a good 10 years after I was. By the way, letting immigrants vote doesn't necessarily always help the Democrats -- I'm the only one in my family who doesn't vote Republican.

CJ

[Eva Luna]

Side immigration-related note: if you immigrate legally to the U.S. while you are under 18, and your parents don't naturalize while you are still under 18 (if you are under 18 and living in the U.S. as a permanent resident when your parents naturalize), then you can't even begin the naturalization process for yourself until you are 18. Current naturalization processing times are a year or more in most jurisdictions under the best of circumstances (i.e. your fingerprints clear the FBI on the first try--meaning they are considered "readable," not just that you have no criminal record --that INS doesn't lose any of your paperwork, there are no unusual legal issues in your case, and you don't change addresses at any point in the process, among other things). And even people who fully intend to make their lives here permanently have no say in the process in the towns where they live; they can't even apply for naturalization until they have been permanent residents for 5 years in most cases.

So a person could miss one or more elections without being able to register to vote, through no fault of his/her own. One friend of mine had his naturalization process take nearly three years, because the INS examiner decided he wanted documentary proof of payment of child support (as proof of my friend's "good moral character," a requirement which can be decided arbitrarily by the examiner according to any criteria he/she feels useful)...in Minsk!

Well, due to the insane taxes on foreign remittances in Belarus (something like 70%), my friend had been passing money along "under the table" to his ex and son, so no paperwork existed. He missed an entire election cycle anyway.

[kniz]

• It should be the right of all eligible citizens to vote. The key word is citizens. Eva change the naturalization process, but don't give non-citizens the right to vote. Perhaps we should let illegal aliens register and then deport them when they show up to vote.
• On the other hand, I personally think that being against globalization is fighting the inevitable. So maybe I should be for this idea, since it will help tear down national distinctions. We can all be citizens of the world. Voters of the world, UNITE!

[ruadh]

Originally posted by cjhoworth
This is the first I've read that non-citizens are allowed to vote in US elections, and I'd like to see the actual law which says so, rather than a columnist's opinion.

Um, he doesn't say that non-citizens can vote in US elections, he says that they can vote in local elections. Here is another cite backing up this (not-very-controversial IMHO) statement. Yes, it's just from another newspaper column, but I kinda doubt that all the various municipalities that allow noncitizen voting publish all their laws online.

Yes, the naturalization process takes months of bureaucratic hassle, but there should be some benefit to it

There are many benefits to naturalisation other than the ability to vote in local elections, including the ability to vote in national elections, which isn't under debate here.

Also, if you care enough to want to influence the government of this country by voting, you should care enough to go through this step.

I doubt there are loads of people who are dying to vote in the US but just can't be arsed to obtain citizenship. It does take several years of residency to be eligible for it, as you surely know.

In most of Europe noncitizens can vote in certain elections. This has not led to widespread voter fraud or any other major problems that I am aware of. Why should the US be different?

[Duck Duck Goose]

Also, it's important to note that it varies by state, so this whole issue is a very minor tempest in an exceedingly small and cramped teapot. In Illinois, in order to register to vote, period, you have to be a U.S. citizen, so I'd assume that this includes local (municipal) elections.

http://www.elections.state.il.us/Ele...gistervote.pdf

[aahala]

Let's let anyone who wants to vote to vote and as often as they see fit.

Now it's that a stupid idea? I don't even see why we allow non-citizens permanent residency. If you want to live here, become a citizen. If you don't wish to be a citizen, why live here?

[UDS]

Well, aahala, unless you qualify on some other ground, the main ground for becoming a US citizen is that you have lived in the US (lawfully) for a number of years.

Hence you generally can't become a US citizen without becoming a permanent resident, or something similar, first.

[Eva Luna]

To clarify (and IANAL, but I'm an immigration paralegal):

To even be eligible to apply to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, you first have to be a lawful permanent resident for five years (three if you are married to a U.S. citizen).

It's a very common situation for people to reside lawfully in the U.S. for many, many years before they even become permanent residents. Typical situation:

Person enters the U.S. legally on a student visa to attent college (4 years) and then grad school (6-8 years typically for a Ph.D.) She then gets a job, legally, on an H-1B work visa (6 year maximum, generally). In Year 5, she marries a U.S. citizen and applies for a green card (permanent residency): marriage-based green card processing in Chicago these days is taking about 2 years. The she has to wait three more before she can even apply for naturalization, then about a year for naturalization processing.

So our hypothetical person has been residing, LEGALLY, in the U.S., following all the rules, paying taxes on the same basis as everyone else, for MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS before she is eligible to register to vote.

Now do you see why this is a real issue?

[kniz]

Originally posted by Eva Luna
Now do you see why this is a real issue?

NO Again something probably needs to be done about the process, but letting aliens vote is not acceptable IMHO.