Noncitizen voting is coming to New York City.
Tomorrow, the city council is expected to approve a measure permitting more than 800,000 noncitizens to vote in city elections.
Noncitizens will need to have a green card or the right to work in the United States, and will need to have been resident in the city for at least 30 days.
Opponents include Councilman Rubén Díaz, a Democrat. He observes that the requirements for becoming a naturalized citizen and thereby earning the right to vote, which include “understanding the basics of [our history] and how our government functions,” would thus be bypassed.
Whether the granting of American citizenship to newcomers has been too lax or too cumbersome is a separate question. But if a particular noncitizen deserves to vote, he or she surely deserves citizenship. Why not start with citizenship?
Opt in. Become an American before you vote in America. This seems basic.
Which is why de-linking voting from formal citizenship conjures up two worrisome questions:
What agenda does this serve? and What’s next?
Next steps could include extending the franchise to those who do not “have the right to work” (as is already the case in San Francisco) and extending this new right, noncitizen voting, to state and federal elections.
That many Democratic congressmen are eager to obliterate any practical distinctions between citizen and noncitizen is shown by their support for HR1, the misnamed “For the People Act,” an assault on state-level laws intended to ensure that only (living) citizens are voting (only once) in elections.
Fortunately, that federal legislation has been blocked. For now.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Citizenship Not Required”
For my part, I don’t really know how these non-citizens will vote, but they will not reverse the decline of New York City, and the politics of that city have been destroying it without their votes.
The real effects of this measure will be to associate that decline with giving the vote to non-citizens, to increase reluctance of citizens to remain in New York City or to move there, and to help the Republican Party to capture offices in centrist jurisdictions through-out American.
“Become an American before you vote in America.”
OK, fine.
But nothing wrong with getting to vote in New York if you’re a New Yorker. You’re not voting on “American” matters, you’re voting on “New York” matters.
As far as “America” goes, whatever happened to “no taxation without representation?”
I want voters to be American citizens before voting in any city or state in America. Let’s vote on it!
The ‘taxation without representation’ contention has limits. We don’t get a vote because we buy a coke in Times Square on a trip to NYC, do we? Should we? It seems another limit should be the willingness to opt into the electorate thru citizenship.
“I want voters to be American citizens before voting in any city or state in America. Let’s vote on it!”
I don’t live in New York. Last time I noticed, you didn’t either. Why would it be either of our damn business how New Yorkers decide to conduct their internal political affairs?
NY is part if the USA and thereby does have an impact on America as a whole. I do not believe I am owed a vote there, of course, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be denied an opinion.
Mankind is my business.
What is also clear is that the NY City Council is voting in a way the NYers oppose by a very large margin. See this poll taken in the last week.
https://onlycitizens.vote/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/120621-NYC-Toplines.pdf