Who gets to vote

Bill de Blasio is not a lawyer, but he can read and had expert attorneys advising him as mayor — which is why he was correct to have qualms with a well-meaning City Council bill to extend voting in local elections to noncitizens, including but not limited to greencard holders. We also thought that the bill, which became law without mayoral assent, conflicted with the somewhat ambiguous language of the New York Constitution and a not-at-all-ambiguous state law reserving the franchise to U.S. citizens.

Now, Staten Island state Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio has so ruled, striking down the measure for violating the Constitution and statute.

Mayor Adams, who, like de Blasio, also declined to sign the bill, gamely tried to defend the Municipal Voting Law in court, but the words are the words. If the Legislature chooses to change state law to permit noncitizens voting, it might have a better chance of surviving, but even that would still run up against the Constitution’s very first sentence in Article I (the Bill of Rights): “No member of this state shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof...” and the very first sentence of Article II (Suffrage): “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election...”

Again and again, the Constitution points to citizens voting, with the implication that it’s only for citizens. And changing the Constitution is much harder than amending a law.

De Blasio, now running for Congress, also didn’t want to discourage anyone from being naturalized to become a citizen, which is not an unimportant point.

We continue to believe that there’s a good moral argument to let green-card holders vote in municipal elections. But morality doesn’t settle the matter. Changes of this consequence must be legally kosher. This wasn’t. Besides, the law went too far by extending voting beyond green-card holders to those here on work visas at least 30 days.

Non-citizen New Yorkers deserve a greater stake in our city and our democracy. But it’ll have to happen another way.