Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Non-Citizens Voting:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250278992
A comment on the [1]census / illegal aliens thread asked whether any
states allow noncitizens to vote. I don't think they generally do that
now, though some municipalities might. But apparently they used to do
it in the past. Here's what I blogged on the subject seven years ago:
1. I generally oppose noncitizens' voting at the state and federal
level, and where taxes or criminal laws are concerned, but in some
contexts -- for instance, the internal governance of a government
body, such as a law school -- belonging to the specific community
(e.g., being a law professor) might be more important than belonging
to the national community. More broadly, the idea of noncitizens
voting wasn't as outrageous as some suggested. (Some have even argued
that noncitizen voting is actually prohibited by the constitution; I
think that's not so.)
2. A friend of mine -- a leading election law expert, who I'd say is
considerably more on the Right than on the Left -- wrote something on
an academic discussion list about the history of noncitizen voting,
and I got his permission to pass it along:
As a historical matter, non-citizens were routinely allowed to vote
in state and local elections at the close of the 18th century
(provided they met the other significant restrictions of the time,
i.e. male, property ownership, etc.). Indeed, states often offered
this benefit as a way to help attract immigrants, who were seen as
economically beneficial.
In the early 19th century, even as the franchise was rapidly
expanded for citizens, there was a trend to limit immigrant voting.
However, this trend reversed again after the Civil War, in part due
to the service of immigrants in both Northern and Southern armies
during the war, and by the 1890s about half the states allowed
non-citizens to vote.
The racist and nativist philosophy of the progressive movement fed
hostility to non-citizen voting, and was augmented by the
assassination of President McKinley by an immigrant, and finally
the "Red Scare" of Woodrow Wilson and Mitchell Palmer after WWI.
The last state to abolish immigrant voting was Arkansas, in 1926.
As a constitutional matter, in Skafte v. Rorex, 553 P.2d 830
(1976), the Colorado Supreme Court found no constitutional right
for permanent resident aliens to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court has
not specifically ruled on it, but has suggested that citizenship
with respect to voting is not a suspect class subject to strict
scrutiny. Hill v. Stone, 421 U.S. 289 (1975); Sugarman v. Dougall,
413 U.S. 634 (1973).
The justification, of course, is that because non-citizens have not
chosen to join the body politic (especially given that in the U.S.,
it is pretty easy to do so), they therefore have not shown an
interest in the long term welfare of that polis, and so should not
vote. The flip side is that they are subject to the draft, pay
taxes, etc., like the rest of us.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250274418
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