Should Noncitizens Be Allowed to Vote?

WASHINGTON — Should noncitizens be allowed to vote?

Officials in Takoma Park, Md. think so. The city, a liberal enclave near the nation's capitol, is one of a few local jurisdictions that encourage noncitizens to vote. Since Takoma Park does not ask for proof of legal residence, it is possible that illegal immigrants were casting ballots this week.

In a few other small cities in Maryland, all residents are allowed to participate in local elections, regardless of citizenship status. Chicago allows noncitizens to vote in school board elections and New York City is considering a proposal to give voting rights to legal immigrants. New York City allowed noncitizens to vote in school board elections for more than three decades, until 2003.

In addition, the Massachusetts cities of Amherst, Cambridge, and Newton, have approved measures to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, but the ordinances require approval of the state legislature, which hasn't acted yet.

About a dozen other cities, including Portland, Maine and Madison, Wis., are considering similar proposals, said Ron Hayduk, co-founder of the Immigrant Voting Project, a nonprofit group that supports voting rights for noncitizens.

Hayduk said that noncitizens are paying taxes, working, and in some cases, revitalizing entire neighborhoods and, therefore, should have a say in the future of their communities.

"These people are stake holders," he said. "They have vested interests. They are noncitizen citizens."

But others believe that allowing noncitizens to vote erodes the electoral process and the meaning of citizenship.

Voting by noncitizens has become a hot political topic since Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York expressed support for a proposal by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

Two of her GOP rivals — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee — said that the plan could lead to fraud, with illegal immigrants casting ballots.

"Voting is a precious right of a citizen. It is absolutely not the privilege that should be extended to somebody who is not a citizen of this country, period," Huckabee said.

Experts said there is no evidence to support charges that illegal immigrants are committing fraud by casting ballots in any kind of significant way.

"Voting by illegal immigrants has not been a serious problem in the United States. Indeed, evidence of election fraud by individuals is almost nonexistent," said Thomas Mann, a Congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "I doubt illegal immigrants would try to use driver's licenses to vote. ... Voting is low on their list of priorities."

But opponents say that the problem of illegal immigrants voting has not been studied so there is no way to know how much it has occurred.

"One illegal immigrant voting is one too many," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates stronger immigration controls.

Krikorian said that granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants would increase the instances of voter fraud, because of a 1993 law known as "Motor Voter," which allows people to register to vote when they get their driver's licenses.

Rep. Brian Bilbray, a California Republican who chairs the House Immigration Reform Caucus, testified before Congress earlier this year that the potential for noncitizens voting is a growing concern, especially when you "consider the relaxed registration requirements and a lax screening process at the time of voting."

"There is a very real possibility that noncitizens have affected the outcomes of elections in the past and will in the future," he said.

There have been some isolated studies on noncitizens voting, including:

— In Utah, a state audit in 2005 showed that more than 58,000 people who appeared to be illegal immigrants had driver's licenses and 383 used their license to register to vote. Of those, 14 voted in an election.

— A 1997 investigation into a disputed House seat in California found that 743 noncitizens cast votes. The total was not enough to overturn the election which was narrowly won by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat.

The idea of noncitizens voting is not so far-fetched.

Noncitizens had the right to vote in the United States from 1776 to 1926, said Hayduk, who authored a book on the subject: "Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States."

Forty states and territories allowed noncitizens to vote in local, state, and even federal elections, and in many of those places, noncitizens were also allowed to run for office, he said.

The situation changed after World War I, when Americans were feeling a strong backlash against immigrants.

Hayduk said that excluding noncitizens from voting amounts to "taxation without representation" and is similar to the historical exclusion of African Americans and women from the electoral process.

"Voting has always been about who's going to have a say," he said.

On the Web:

Immigrant Voting Project: www.immigrantvoting.org

The Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu