Oct 24,, 2023 https://nypost.com/2023/10/24/opinion/d … -can-vote/
"If you think offering migrants luxury hotel rooms, free meals, laundry service, transportation, health care and immigration lawyers is excessive, just wait until they can vote.
Democrats are pushing to give noncitizens the franchise in local elections in New York City, Boston and other municipalities, as well as statewide in Connecticut.
The number of migrants pouring across the southern border has hit a record high, according to data released Saturday.
Illegal crossings soared 21% over the previous month.
On a yearly basis, the figure reached 2.48 million.
Democrats may feign shock and distress.
Don’t be fooled.
Dems see these newcomers as their guarantee of a permanent voting majority in local elections.
Not years from now, after the newcomers become citizens.
Right now.
Mayor Eric Adams’ rhetoric is typical.
He warns that the overwhelming number of migrants arriving — 16,000 to 17,000 a month — will “destroy the city,” but he’s also leading the legal effort to turn migrants into voters.
Adams and other New York Democrats pushed President Joe Biden to expedite work authorizations for them.
They said it’s about making migrants self-sufficient. Maybe, but Dems have another powerful motive.
The fine print of New York City’s “Our City, Our Vote” law, enacted in December 2021, says anyone with a work authorization who has been in the city for a mere 30 days can vote, even if that person entered the country illegally.
Biden’s recent action fast-tracking work authorizations for Venezuelan border crossers, who make up about 41% of the Big Apple’s recent arrivals, will make tens of thousands of them eligible to vote under city law, as soon as they obtain their working papers.
That is, if New York City’s voting law is allowed to go into effect.
A big “if.” The law is tied up in court.
A group of Republicans led by Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella sued, arguing the state Constitution grants the right to vote to “every citizen.”
A Staten Island judge bought that argument and struck down the law, but Adams’ Law Department is appealing that ruling in a higher court, arguing the state Constitution does not specifically prohibit noncitizens from voting.
Adams has a shot at winning.
Vermont’s top court ruled in favor of allowing noncitizens to vote in municipal elections, even though the Vermont Constitution restricts voting in state elections to US citizens.
California and Maryland also already permit municipalities to enfranchise noncitizens.
The Boston City Council is debating allowing newcomers to vote, including migrants who recently came across the border illegally and have temporary protected status.
In Washington, DC, Democrats rammed through a local law in November 2022 allowing noncitizens, even foreign-embassy employees, to vote, as long as they’ve resided in the city for 30 days.
In Connecticut, Democrats want to amend the state’s Constitution to allow noncitizens to vote in state and local elections.
Amending the state’s charter is a multiyear complicated process, and it’s facing stiff opposition from the Republican minority in the Legislature.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora calls noncitizen voting “outrageous.”
For New York City, “suicidal” is more accurate.
Adding some 800,000 noncitizens to the 5 million registered voters in the city will have an impact, even if newcomers don’t always vote as a bloc.
Nora Moran of United Neighborhood Houses, a New York nonprofit, predicts noncitizen voting will make political leaders “more responsive” to the needs of newcomers and their neighborhoods.
To the extent “more responsive” means spending more, that will be a disaster.
City spending on migrants already exceeds the budgets of the Fire, Sanitation and Parks departments combined.
“We are past our breaking point,” Adams cautioned two months ago, adding that New Yorkers will be facing cuts in every type of city service to foot the bill.
Letting noncitizens vote will dilute the political power of all other New Yorkers, who are the real victims of Biden’s open borders.
Tell Adams to withdraw his legal appeal and stop pushing for noncitizen voting."
Oct 25, 2023 -- Undocumented immigrants are allowed to vote in local elections in some municipalities https://www.verifythis.com/article/news … 90093a5968
" Undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens can’t vote for federal or state offices, but they can vote for local offices in more than a dozen municipalities."
There won’t be a nationwide federal election in 2023, but voters will still be able to cast ballots for local and state elections on this year’s upcoming Nov. 7 election day.
After we VERIFIED that federal law prohibits undocumented immigrants from voting in federal elections, some VERIFY readers asked if they are allowed to vote in local elections.
One viewer texted: “Can [undocumented immigrants] vote in local, non-federal elections?”
THE QUESTION
Are undocumented immigrants allowed to vote in some local elections?
This is true.
Yes, more than a dozen municipalities allow undocumented immigrants to vote in some or all local elections.
WHAT WE FOUND
Federal law does not prohibit noncitizens, including those who are undocumented and not authorized to legally live or work in the U.S., from voting in local or state elections.
While no states grant undocumented immigrants the right to vote in state elections, more than a dozen municipalities nationwide allow undocumented immigrants to vote in local elections.
U.S. code makes it illegal for any non-citizen to vote for federal office, including for president, vice president, the Senate and the House of Representatives. However, federal law specifies that non-citizens are allowed to vote for other offices if they’re allowed to “under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance.”
No state grants noncitizens the right to vote in statewide elections, such as those for governor, according to USA.gov. But many state constitutions don’t explicitly prohibit local governments from allowing noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants, to vote in local elections.
“Municipalities can expand voting rights in local elections if there are no explicit state constitutional or legislative impediments and so long as local jurisdictions have the power of home rule,” wrote Joshua Douglas, an election and voting rights expert who teaches at the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law, in a 2017 paper.
Ballotpedia, a digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections, lists 17 municipalities that currently have laws allowing at least some noncitizens to vote in local elections. Noncitizens include people with legal authorization to live or work in the U.S., as well as people who are undocumented.
VERIFY confirmed that the language of 13 of these municipalities’ laws includes undocumented immigrants among the noncitizens allowed to vote. The other four allow some noncitizens to vote, but not undocumented immigrants.
These municipalities include San Francisco and Oakland in California, Washington, D.C., and 10 communities in Maryland. All 10 of the Maryland communities are within the two counties that directly border Washington, D.C.
Some of these municipalities, such as San Francisco and Oakland, only allow their undocumented residents and other noncitizens to vote in local school board elections, and only if they are parents of children attending the local school district. Others, such as Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote for offices such as mayor and council member, as well as on referendums.
Oakland’s law directly franchises undocumented immigrants by defining noncitizens as “documented immigrants, lawful permanent residents, residents on work visas, and undocumented immigrants.”
Many of the other laws don’t directly name undocumented immigrants, but extend the right to vote broadly enough to include them. For example, Chevy Chase Section 3, Maryland, defines “qualified voter” as “any person who is a resident of Chevy Chase Section 3, without regard to citizenship, and is at least eighteen (18) years of age.”
While the city doesn’t allow them to vote in elections for citywide offices, Chicago allows undocumented immigrants to vote in what it calls local school councils, which serve as the governing bodies for individual schools. Students can also vote in these elections, of which there are 477 in the city.
A few other cities nationwide allow noncitizen, legal residents to vote, but not undocumented immigrants. For example, Montpelier, Vermont, specifies a person must be a legal resident of the U.S. to register to vote.
New York City was, for a time, among the cities that allowed “lawful permanent residents” to vote, but did not extend that right to undocumented immigrants. However, the law has since been blocked by a state court.
Many noncitizen voting laws, whether inclusive of undocumented immigrants or strict to legal residents, face legal challenges upon their passage. The California Court of Appeal sided with San Francisco against a legal challenge to stop its noncitizen voting law in August 2023, and Washington, D.C.’s law is currently facing a challenge in court.
This story is also available in Spanish / Lee este artículo también en español: Inmigrantes indocumentados pueden votar en elecciones locales en algunas municipalidades"
