New Haven Independent: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/destefano_let_immigrants_vote/id_42894
Several Maryland municipalities already allow non-citizen voting, including Takoma Park, which granted illegal immigrants the right to vote in 1992. Chicago allows non-citizens to vote in school board elections. The proposal has failed in some other communities, such as San Francisco and Portland, Maine.
Nationally, a movement to grant non-citizen immigrants local voting rights has sprung up in “close to two dozen states,” according to Michele Wucker, president of the World Policy Institute and author of Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right.
“The idea is that when you live in a city, you are essentially a citizen of that city, which is separate form federal or national citizenship,” Wucker said Tuesday. “The logic is that everybody is better off when everyone on their block and in their town has a stake in staying on top of issues and working together and to get safe and clean streets, good schools, reliable transportation, and good health care.
“The other part of the argument is that from the beginning of U.S. history until the 1920s, non-citizen voting was very common, at one point in 44 states and territories, at various levels. The movement now is for local elections. In most cases, with the exceptions of school boards, it’s for people who have their papers, who are legal. This is not illegal immigrants voting for president.”
Campaigns for local voting rights usually include all immigrants here legally when it comes to municipal elections (like for mayor), and include undocumented immigrants when it comes to school board elections, Wucker said.
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