California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote -- Automatically?

Noncitizens' Right to Vote Becomes Law in New York City

Starting next yr, 800,000 legal permanent residents volition be eligible to vote in municipal elections.

Credit... Anna Watts for The New York Times

January. ix, 2022

Mayor Eric Adams, setting bated prior misgivings, allowed a bill to become law on Sunday that would grant more than 800,000 noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections.

"I believe that New Yorkers should have a say in their regime, which is why I have and will continue to support this important legislation," the mayor said in a statement.

"I look forward to bringing millions more into the autonomous procedure," he added.

The measure applies to legal residents, including those with green cards, and so-called Dreamers who were brought to the land illegally as children but were allowed to remain nether a federal program known as DACA. Although the City Council approved the pecker last calendar month, New York law provides the mayor the opportunity to veto it within 30 days. Without any action, the beak passes into law automatically, as happened with this measure out.

Considering of the new law, an estimated 808,000 adults will be eligible to vote starting time Jan. nine, 2023, according to the City Council. They will be able to vote in primary and general elections for citywide contests, similar those for mayor and public advocate, likewise equally in local races, like those for City Quango and borough presidents. The law does not allow noncitizens to vote in state or federal elections.

On Mon, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against the mayor, Urban center Council and the metropolis Board of Elections, challenging the law as unconstitutional.

In a statement, Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, accused Democrats of attempting to subvert elections by allowing noncitizens to vote, adding: "American elections should exist decided past American citizens."

New York is non the first city to implement such a measure — similar policies be in Vermont and Maryland, and are under consideration in Illinois, Maine and Massachusetts — only information technology is the largest to do then.

The mensurate stands in sharp contrast to other efforts nationwide to limit the correct to vote. In August, Texas passed a pecker limiting the use of absentee voting and drib boxes, and empowering partisan poll watchers. That measure has been challenged by the Justice Section, which contended that the law disenfranchised older, disabled and non-English language-speaking voters.

Mr. Adams's hesitation over the bill concerned the clause allowing noncitizens to vote later on 30 consecutive days in the city — a period he worried might be also brusque. Simply he said he changed his mind after consulting with colleagues.

"Later hearing their rationale and their theories behind it, I thought information technology was more important to not veto the bill, or go far the fashion at all," he told Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union."

Former Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who sponsored the mensurate and has since been nominated by Mr. Adams to serve as transportation commissioner, praised the mayor on Twitter, saying information technology was "no surprise" that he backed the bill.

"Eric has shown once again his relentless commitment to our immigrant communities," he said.

Opponents of the measure argued that it could discourage immigrants from seeking citizenship and might non be ramble. The Republican National Committee besides filed suit against two Vermont cities in September over like voting expansions, saying they violated that state's Constitution.

The residency requirement in the New York City bill mirrors the voting constabulary in New York State, which requires an private to reside in the county, village or state where they are registered for at least xxx days earlier casting a vote.

Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigrant Coalition, an umbrella system representing hundreds of immigrant and refugee groups, cheered the bill as "the largest expansion to our democracy in the past century."

"Immigrant New Yorkers volition have the opportunity to be a part of the procedure and will no longer be rendered invisible," he said.