Leaders in Frederick, Maryland, Approve Voting by Non-Citizens in Local Elections
“Alderman Ben MacShane said he was excited to support the change as a way to value and include everyone in the community.”
This is a total betrayal of the American citizens who live in this community. Pay close attention to who benefits.
The Frederick News-Post reports:
Aldermen approve non-citizen voting, representation by district, other charter changes
Residents of Frederick who are non-U.S. citizens will be able to vote in elections for city officials, one of an array of charter changes the city’s aldermen approved Thursday night.
Under the change, anyone at least 18 years old who can prove residency in the city and does not claim the right to vote in any other location may vote in city elections, regardless of their citizenship status.
The aldermen also approved a variety of other changes to the city’s government, such as switching the name of the Board of Aldermen to the City Council, creating legislative districts for members to represent, and putting a limit on how many consecutive terms they can serve.
The non-citizen voting measure passed on 4-1, with Alderman Kelly Russell opposed.
Russell talked about her father’s immigration from Greece and his service in the U.S. Army that allowed him to become a citizen.
She acknowledged that the issue is complex and emotional and said the American immigration system is damaged.
But that’s an issue for the federal government to address, she said.
Russell said she’s talked to many people who went through the process to obtain their citizenship and told her they felt allowing non-citizens to vote in city elections diminished their own citizenship.
Alderman Ben MacShane said he was excited to support the change as a way to value and include everyone in the community.
Rights and inclusion is not a zero-sum game, MacShane said. Extending rights to someone doesn’t diminish the rights of the person next to them, he said.
Rights have always been earned through a fight, Alderman Derek Shackelford said.
“Freedom has never been free. It’s always come with a cost and a price,” he said.
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“local”
thats bs
this way the illegals have some form of government id and therefor for any national elections,,say the potus,, they can use it and both the illegals and their lefty helpers can claim “CONFUSION” if ever challenged /caught
This has nothing to do with illegals. And in any case, illegals already have all the ID they need.
This is a total betrayal of the American citizens who live in this community.
Sounds to me like a violation of Article 4, Section 4, first clause.
No, it isn’t. Even if a state were to do this (and no state is proposing to do so), it would still be a republican form of government.
Bear in mind that in the early days of the republic several states did allow aliens to vote. And that meant they could vote in federal elections as well. Nobody thought this meant they didn’t have a republican form of government.
But this isn’t even a state. It makes perfect sense for all of a city’s residents to participate equally in its government, regardless of their citizenship. As La Guardia might have said, there’s no American or foreign way to fill potholes.
It seems like the legal citizens of Frederick need to reassess their “leaders”.
A people always gets the government it deserves.
“Rights and inclusion is not a zero-sum game, MacShane said. Extending rights to someone doesn’t diminish the rights of the person next to them, he said.”
So we’re going to assign four illegals the right to live in your home, Zhivago-style. And you can all vote to determine who gets the master bedroom and who gets to sleep with your daughter.
The first sentence is correct: actual rights are not a zero-sum game. Everyone can have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property) without requiring other law-abiding citizens to give theirs up.
The problem is then extending “rights” to include things that are a zero-sum game, like voting. If you let people who shouldn’t, vote, then you dilute legitimate voters’ votes.
Voting is a privilege of citizens and permanent legal residents. Allowing others to make decisions about governing those people is a violation of the concept of a republic.
Who decides who should vote and who shouldn’t, if not the elected representatives of that place?
So you agree legal residents should be allowed to vote in municipal elections? Your only quibble is with extending it to illegal residents? Then you’ve already conceded half the argument.
Now all that’s left to argue about is whether someone who can prove that they are in fact a resident of the city, and therefore paying local taxes and using local services and participating in the local community, but are subject to the remote possibility that ICE might one day take it into its head to deport them, should also be allowed to vote, considering the reality that this is very unlikely to happen.
Now if ICE were to start deporting people who are keeping their noses clean, then I can see an argument that you can’t really be a permanent resident when you have no idea whether you’ll still be living here tomorrow. And they could reply that none of us have any idea whether we’ll still be living here tomorrow. The Grim Reaper is the big ICE and is doing its job without favor or mercy.
In any case, a republican form of government simply means an elected executive and legislature. It doesn’t matter who can vote. If you think letting too many people vote makes it not a republican form of government, then what about letting too few people vote? Before women could vote, did the states not have republican forms of government?! Allowing 18-20 year-olds to vote diluted the votes of those 21+; did that make it not a republic, or was it not a republic before?