On Tuesday, residents of Portland, Maine will vote on whether legal residents who are not citizens (student visas, green card holders) should be given the right to vote in local elections.
Meanwhile, across the country, Roger Hedgecock reports that in California, many illegal aliens are routinely registered to vote. Thanks to ACORN, who took matters into their own hands, the current federal law that requires you to become a citizen before you get the right to vote, has been circumvented. And not just in California. Anywhere there is a significant illegal population – which is every major city. They decided that the federal requirements for citizenship - you must be a legal resident for five years, pass a test of English proficiency, demonstrate knowledge of U.S. history and government and swear allegiance to the United States of America - are too burdensome and unfair. So they waived them.
With ACORN’s registration system, all you need do is sign a document swearing you are a citizen. No one ever checks, and no one has ever been prosecuted for perjury in California. I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet this is pretty much true across the country.
None of this makes any since on its face. The fact that some non-citizens pay taxes does not translate to a right to vote. I paid taxes from the time I was 14 until I was 21 without being allowed to vote (yes, that used to be the legal age until the problem of drafting 18 year olds to fight and die in Vietnam, but not allowing them to vote, forced a revision). Life’s not fair. Get in line to file your complaint.
If you’re not a citizen you don’t vote. Period. It’s one of the benefits of actually being a citizen, not a green-card holder, or an illegal alien working and paying taxes with a stolen social security number.
So here’s the deal: until such time as I can go to Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Nigeria or France and vote in their elections as a non-citizen, I don’t want any of them voting for how to run my country either.
