NYC’S noncitizen voting proposal goes too far

The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News:

Among five proposed changes to the state constitution on the November ballot, many of which related to expanding the right to vote, none gave New York’s citizens the option of altering the document’s basic description of who may cast a ballot.

Per Article II, Section 1, “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people.”

Yet the City Council now stands poised to pass a law enabling noncitizens to vote locally, which we believe is quite likely to be judged by the courts to conflict with that constitutional language. And this is where we shrug and roll our eyes.

To be sure, there are sound moral reasons to enable hundreds of thousands of permanent residents to participate in municipal elections. They live and work and raise children here; they contribute in every meaningful way; they pay taxes.

We don’t subscribe to the notion that letting a green-cardholder cast a ballot for City Council or mayor inherently devalues citizenship, because citizenship is still required for participation in state and federal elections and jury duty. Besides, the parents of public schoolchildren — whether legal or undocumented immigrants — already get to vote in Community Education Council elections.

Unfortunately, the council’s bill, while promising in its headline language to be about “allowing lawful permanent residents in New York city to vote in municipal elections,” also extends the franchise to anyone “authorized to work in the United States,” a universe that includes thousands of others, including people who may be on brief stays in New York and America. In our view it would make far more sense to draw a bright line between citizens and permanent residents on the one hand, and other legal and illegal immigrants on the other.

Then there’s the pesky problem that the Board of Elections hasn’t figured out how to fairly and efficiently run our existing contests. Enabling hundreds of thousands of additional voters in only some elections is a little like taking a junker out on the race track.

It would make far more sense to draw a bright line between citizens and permanent residents on the one hand, and other legal and illegal immigrants on the other.