Non-Citizens Expected to Get Voting Rights in NYC

NewsMax ^ | April 5, 2006 | Carl Limbacher

[Icelander]

Legislation granting non-citizens the right to vote is expected to pass in New York City this year, immigration rights advocates tell the Amsterdam News.

"We’re very excited and very optimistic that this will pass," New York City Councilman Charles Barron said at a recent press briefing. "We see this as the historical launching of something that should have happened a long time ago," the outspoken Democrat added.

Dubbed the "Voting Rights Restoration Act," the measure would permit immigrants who have a green card to vote in municipal elections, including for mayor, comptroller and city council, after having lived in the city for six months.

The New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights sees the measure being extended one day to state and even federal elections. "There is nothing in either the U.S. or the New York State Constitution that prevents us from expanding the franchise to include non-citizen residents," a spokesman for the group argued in January.

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Advocates claim that 22 states and federal territories allowed non-citizen voting during the 18th and 19th centuries. In New York, non-citizen residents were denied the right to vote in 1804. According to the Caribbean news service, Heartbeat News, the measure's impact on New York City elections would be substantial, adding up to 1.5 million voters to rolls. Most of the new voters, experts predict, would cast their ballots for Democrats.

While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has voiced opposition to the proposal, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told the Amsterdam News that she's "open to talking about passage."

In a statement issued by her office, City Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito praised the measure, explaining:

"East Harlem, Mott Haven and the Upper West Side are home to at least 25 thousand non-citizens of voting age who contribute in countless ways to the economic, social and cultural vitality of District 8 and NYC as a whole. Unfortunately they are not allowed to directly participate in choosing the municipal representatives who make the policies that affect their daily lives."

[Antoninus]

This can't possibly be constitutional, can it?

[HiJinx]

I'm thinking of changing my citizenship to Tahitian, and getting myself deported.

Think it'll work?

[Brian Allen]

<< My County Republican Chairwoman watched them get bused back to Mexico from the polls two elections ago.

I know the deal, Brian. >>

I live and work most of the time 10,000 miles from home in Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Middle East and, although continuously registered in this county since I transfered from Washington State in 1995, have voted absentee, from Asia, for the past eight years.

At present at home for around six months, a month ago I mailed in a change of adddress form and voter registration, here in Los Angeles. A woman 'phoned me from the County Registar's office and then mailed out a refusal to register me on the grounds I don't hold a California Driver's Licence. [I still have a place in Washington and hold a WA licence]

I gave her a [Fairly polite] piece of my mind and reminded her that every time I had voted here in LA I'd had to battle my way through busloads of corpses, felons, criminal aliens and other "Democrats," just to make it into the polling place!

[Brian Allen]

[I'm still not registered]

[Bigg Red]

I'm thinking of changing my citizenship to Tahitian, and getting myself deported.

Think it'll work?

&&
Don't forget to apply for welfare, etc. when you come back.

[Ace Backwords]

This is great. Any politician who votes in favor of giving non-citizens the right to vote is finished. In fact, any politician who comes out in favor of illegal immigration in ANY WAY is finished. We are going to run all the bums out in the next election.