This will include legal immigrants on green cards/visas and illegal immigrants with DACA status or who can otherwise show residence in NYC.
When I first heard about this I thought it was a joke or some deliberate conservative lie, but no in fact, this was indeed the case.
New York City became the largest city in the country to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections after the City Council on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation granting the right to more than 800,000 legal residents.The move places New York City at the forefront of the debate over voting rights, serving as a stark contrast to some states that have moved to add voting restrictions, including explicitly barring noncitizens from voting.
The legislation was approved over the objections of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who questioned whether the City Council has the power to grant voting rights to noncitizens. Legal experts expect that the bill could face a legal challenge. Noncitizens would be able to begin to register to vote a year from now. They could begin voting in local elections as of Jan. 9, 2023, according to the City Council.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, the bill’s primary sponsor, said the law will give more people who live in New York City and pay taxes there a say in how the city is run.
I think that this is a bad idea. For what it's worth I also think it's illegal as the New York state law reads that
No person shall be qualified to register for and vote at any election unless he is a citizen of the United States and is or will be, on the day of such election, eighteen years of age or over, and a resident of this state and of the county, city or village for a minimum of thirty days next preceding such election.
Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people and upon all questions submitted to the vote of the people provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.
There are few nations that extend limited or full political franchise to visitors and illegal immigrants.
I think the NYC law is already forbidden by New York law and constitution. Time will tell. I don't understand why some people on the progressive left or on the libertarian right are opposed to a state or nation that makes distinctions between citizens and non-citizens.
You can't have a state without such legally enforced distinctions. Citizens and non-citizens have different understanding, perspective, and acceptance of a given political system. Our interests also might be divergent.
For example, I am not supportive of Israel's policies towards its Palestinian residents or citizens. Neither am I fond of China's policies towards its Uighur or Tibetan citizens.
If I and say five million of my like-minded closest friends illegally immigrated to China or Israel and agitated to vote or otherwise influence politics in a way that wasn't necessarily in line with the current polity, how do you think citizens in those countries would react?
One promise of the United States of America is that anyone can become a citizen. Theoretically your race, ethnic origin, national origin, religion, gender, sexuality, etc doesn't matter.
Every group in the world can be found among the American citizenry.
But that doesn't mean that everyone in the world should be able to vote in American elections, even municipal ones. I don't think it's wrong to require that voters in American elections must be American citizens. American politicians should not be seeking votes from non-citizens.
We talk a lot, and rightfully so, about how Republicans have redrawn maps and sought to minimize the number of Black American voters or make the Black American vote less relevant.
We should also talk about how extending the vote to Chinese or Dominican or various other illegal immigrants or non-citizens, as Democrats in NYC have just done, is another form of voter suppression. An American election isn't the proper venue to address the political preferences of non-citizens. This is not their country.
Though the analogy isn't perfect, writ large a nation is like a family. You're born into a family or you're allowed into one or you consensually build your own with other people. You can't just show up at someone else's family gathering and declare yourself part of it.
