[The Hill] Officials in Boston are considering allowing non-citizens to vote

Ya, some nuance would help here. A specific example?

 

You use MATLAB.

*drops mic*

 

You got me.

 

I don't agree with the slippery slope argument here. Allowing non-citizen to vote has happen before so we have some history. The reaction was changes to prevent it in many states and at the federal level. Allowing this to happen again doesn't impact federal election and other states that doesn't allow it today. And even if more cities or even state catch on, it can ends again. If there is a slippery slope here, it's not one direction. I go back to let the local government do what they want with this (I see what they are proposing as reasonable for them) and we'll see.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_foreigners_to_vote_in_the_United_States

However, over 40 states or territories, including colonies before the Declaration of Independence, have at some time given at least some aliens voting rights in some or all elections.[8][9][10][11] For example, in 1875, the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett noted that "citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage. Thus, in Missouri, persons of foreign birth, who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, may under certain circumstances vote."[12]

By 1900, nearly half of the states and territories had some experience with voting by aliens, and for some the experience lasted more than half a century.[13] At the turn of the twentieth century, anti-immigration feeling ran very high, and Alabama stopped allowing aliens to vote by way of a constitutional change in 1901; Colorado followed suit in 1902, Wisconsin in 1908, and Oregon in 1914.[14] Just as the nationalism unleashed by the War of 1812 helped to reverse the alien suffrage policies inherited from the late eighteenth century, World War I caused a sweeping retreat from the progressive alien suffrage policies of the late nineteenth century.[15] In 1918, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota all changed their constitutions to purge alien suffrage, and Texas ended the practice of non-citizen voting in primary elections by statute.[14] Indiana and Texas joined the trend in 1921, followed by Mississippi in 1924 and, finally, Arkansas in 1926.[16] In 1931, political scientist Leon Aylsworth noted: "For the first time in over a hundred years, a national election was held in 1928 in which no alien in any state had the right to cast a vote for a candidate for any office – national, state, or local."[17]

 

Except we are talking about people here LEGALLY. Not illegal immigrants. They are giving LEGAL immigrants the right to vote which is exactly what the colonists were considered as part of British territory - NOT CITIZENS but LEGAL SUBJECTS of the crown.

So how you get the idea that my logic translates to all illegal aliens getting the right to vote is just incomprehensible. They are not legally here so obviously I am not arguing for that.

LEGAL immigrants are paying city and local income taxes - that a tourist or illegal does not pay. So that's where the no taxation without representation comes in.

 

if they do something like this, I would hope they get a different voter registration identification than the one citizens use for federal elections .

 

Certainly it needs to be clear that they cannot vote in federal election. I doubt any non citizen resident would knowingly risk fines, imprisonment, and deportation for voting in federal elections.

 

Why start something that will only get worse with time.

 

You start one it will lead to the other that's a proven fact so why start it at all.

 

We could use them. Boston is a hot bed for fields like biomedical engineering. You go to any engineering department in any university, its dominated immigrants while the liberal arts section of campus is dominated by white people.

 

If the undocumented ones make it Boston, there is less of chance that they need a vehicle since public transportation is more prevalent. Here is houston, they drive without insurance and/or drunk and are big strain on the area. I guess if the libs must have the undocumented aliens in the country it would be better if they weren't so concentrated in the states that border our southern neighbors.

 

Well I don't know how this measure would attract illegal immigrants. The Boston area has one of the highest percentages of professional level college educated immigrants in the country.

In Boston, the poor people are the white "townies" and the wealthy are transplants and immigrants in the finance, technology, medical fields.

 

We can ship them up there in an 18 wheeler. Air conditioned of course. LMK

 

Foreign people here on vacation pay taxes, should the get the right to vote? What about foreigners buying property in the USA and not living in it, they pay taxes too. Should they get the right to vote?

As for the American colonists... they were not even in England, they were thousands of miles away. It really isn’t even comparable to non citizens in the USA.

Why should illegal aliens not get the right to vote under the same logic? They pay taxes and live in the USA. In many cases they have lived in the USA longer than legal immigrants that are not US citizens.

If immigrant guests in the USA want a say in US governmental voting, there is a way to do that.... become a US citizen.

We really don’t need this slippery slope. It is very simple, US citizens vote. Those that are not US citizens do not vote.

 

US citizenship applies to federal elections. This country has a 200 year history of allowing immigrants to vote at the local and state level. Slippery slope my ass.

 

Again, this makes sense for local elections as local elections have direct impact on municipal services that permanent residents pay with property tax. They pay into their water treatment facilities, they have a logical right to have a say in how those services are managed .

 

Everyone pays sales tax regardless. It's not a tax imposed onto people but rather the cost of commerce. Property taxes are the same.

Income taxes are different. Only residents pay income taxes. So for instance, if I live in live in DE but work in MD, I am exempt from MD income taxes even though I am there. It's defined by residency.

And illegal alien isn't a resident (I think this is obvious). But a Legal immigrant IS a resident and therefore subject to income tax. So it makes sense that if you are going to subject them to pay income tax, you should give them a voice in how the money is spent. The Illegal alien has no residency and doesn't pay local income tax.

I am not sure where the slope is? It seems pretty cut and dry to me.

 

Since you feel they should have the right to vote based on income tax, what about states without an income tax?

I actually do not care about this as much as many other issues so I am not trying to be argumentative here. I am just curious if that dynamic changes anything in your opinion.

 

As someone who is pro-immigration, I totally agree. This also further calcifies class distinctions already present in the immigration process.

 

Those municipalities who don't have an income tax probably don't have as much incentive. It used to be common practice by the way early in American history for non-citizens to get to vote in local elections. So again, it's odd that a slippery slope argument is being made here.

When you consider that non-citizens make up 28% of Bostons population and account for a massive part of its tax revenue and overall spend, it makes total sense to give those people a voice in shaping public policy since they are funding a major portion of it. I am not sure why people are so upset that the city that coined "no taxation without representation" is considering giving a voice to 28% of it's population who is creating a big chunk of the income.