Should noncitizens be allowed to vote?

That their presence in the military is not an automatic entitlement to vote unless the possibility of citizenship is part of their contract.

Garamet stupidly argues that noncitizens fight our wars -- so what if they do? That doesn't qualify them to vote.

So, even though these people are counted in the census, which then goes towards assigning Federal representation to the states, not all of those people should be able to have a say in the election of those representatives?

Yes, that is exactly right just as Indians were counted but didn't get to vote until the citizenship act. Besides those numbers are used for far more than simply determining the number of reps but also in all manner of federal funding formulas. That includes both legal resident noncitizens and illegal residents. So, no, simply being counted in the census does not entitle one to vote. Period. As only citizens get to vote.

Perhaps then we could compromise and not count them fully. Perhaps we could say each non-citizen is worth 3/5 of a citizen.

What does whether or not they're called a mercenary have to do with being qualified to vote?

No it doesn't...but it puts them on the fast track for citizenship which would then qualify them to vote.

I'm curious how other countries handle this question (the OP Q).

Correct...and redistricting is an example of why they shouldn't. If you want to allow them to vote in local elections, knock yourself out...but I think we should keep them at arms length from federal elections.

UK answer in post #58

It will bleed over into the Federal election system in a million ways which is why these hyper partisan activists want to do it. THAT is their primary motivation. The rest is just window dressing.

I feel ya! It seems pretty obvious to me.

I find it very telling that the go-to argument against allowing non-citizens to vote is "they'll vote for the other side!". If your policies are so unpopular that you have to actively work to disenfranchise people so that they can't vote against them, then you don't have very good policies.

"popular policies" are not always (or even often) "good policies".

Platitudes R Us.

Witness if you will, Donald John Trump.

This makes sense to me.

There are all kinds of voting. College student governments, some of which do have a measure of non-symbolic power, are elected by students, regardless of age, residency or citizenship. Corporate boards are elected by shareholders. The boards of member-governed nonprofits are elected by their members, which can be defined variously, usually either by some kind of membership fee (as in a country club or housing co-op) or by being a client (as in a credit union).

I don't see why a town shouldn't be able to expand the franchise for municipal elections if it wants to.

Really? This is the precedent you want to cite?

If it helps, he didn’t refer to them as savages. That’s, um, good.

Context. The people with good policies are satisfied with citizens voting. The people with bad policies need outsiders to get them passed because Americans don't want them.

We're not disenfranchising anybody. But somebody is trying to extend the franchise in order to govern against the will of the current electorate.

Consider the utter stupidity of your argument, that our "bad" policies can only be stopped by importing new voters to block them. If they're so bad, why can't we just count on Americans to stop them?

Nowhere near tired of winning yet.

Since the current electorate is who gets to decide if the franchise is expanded or not, that argument really doesn't hold water.

Yabut what about the disenfranchisement of minority US citizen voters?

He'll tell you that's fake news.

You're smoking crack if you think the electorate gets to decide. They decide only who the representatives are, and dislodging entrenched interests in the political class and the bureaucracy is a lengthy process.

In fact, your side is counting on that.

If you believe that, why are you pissing your pants over "furriners" who have served this country being fast-tracked to citizenship?

Disenfranchisement? Bullshit. I have yet to find an example of someone denied a vote who was not offered a provisional ballot on election day.

If you hypocritical assholes gave a crap about individual voters you would fight voter fraud instead of enabling it.

You can bet nobody votes in DNC conventions without ID. Apparently some elections are worth protecting.

Am I? Where? Examples, please.

Well, I assume you've cleaned up after yourself.




Fact Sheet: Immigrants and the Military

It's not just voter ID's...I'm actually kind of torn on those. It's other stuff like getting rid of early voting and racial gerrymandering.

Coming from somebody whose side is firmly entrenched in power despite having lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections and despite having gotten roughly 7,000,000 fewer votes in the elections that made up the current Senate (and that's after removing the impact of the Democrat-versus-Democrat race in California) ... that's pretty rich.

Link?

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/13/4623...zens-meet-the-veterans-who-have-been-deported

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/immigrant-veterans-united-states

https://www.military.com/join-armed...us-military-helps-naturlize-non-citizens.html