Between 500K and 1M Non-Citizens May Get Voting Rights in New York City

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Up to one million non-citizens living in New York City may obtain voting rights for local elections if a plan by Democrat city councilmembers is approved.

As Breitbart News reported, Democrat city councilmembers are considering legislation that allows eligible legal immigrants to vote in citywide elections — similar to San Francisco, California, policy where non-citizens are allowed to vote in local school board elections.

Anywhere between 500,000 to one million non-citizens in New York City would be granted the right to vote in local elections if the legislation is approved by the city’s 51-member city council, sources told the New York Daily News.

Pushing the legislation is Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) along with 22 other Democrat councilmembers and the city’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

The law would give local electoral power to the city’s massive 3.1 million foreign-born population — making up almost 40 percent of the total city population. The majority of the city’s foreign-born population has arrived from the Dominican Republic, China, Mexico, Jamaica, Guyana, Ecuador, and Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Bangladesh, and India.

More than half of New York City’s foreign-born population speaks either Spanish or Chinese, and nearly 50 percent of the total foreign-born population is effectively nonproficient in English.

Similar to the New York City Democrats, elected Democrats in the state’s legislature are pushing a measure that would automatically register to vote all eligible state residents who apply for driver’s licenses unless they check an “opt-out” box.

As of this year, illegal aliens are able to obtain driver’s licenses in New York, indicating that illegal aliens and non-citizens will only be excluded from the state voter rolls if they check the opt-out box before applying for a license.

Elected Democrats have argued there are safeguards in the legislation like mandating non-citizens and illegal aliens check the opt-out box.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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