Non-Citizen Voting Proponents Seeks High Level Policy Change On Right To Vote

Westford resident and green card holder Sandhya Iyer told the Select Board last evening that  “voting is about diversity not citizenship”.  She supported her argument using a short slide presentation in which she said that many green card holders, like herself, have contributed both time and money to the communities they live in and would like to be able to vote in local elections.  Iyer, who is employed as the economic director for the town of Lexington, informed the board, that there are several similar initiatives now being presented to local governments in Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, Brookline, Amherst, Wayland and Lexington.   She added that this movement is seeking a high-level policy change on voting.

           Iyer informed the board that there are about 1.2M foreign born residents living in Massachusetts. Of that number 673K are naturalized citizens and 590K are non-citizens.  She said that while non-citizens pay taxes and are very concerned about such things as education, infrastructure and inclusion, they have no voice.   When asked why the non- citizen population does not seek citizenship, she said that the process is too long and many of the nations of origin, do not have dual citizenship.  She said that her country, India, does not have it.  This is a problem because many Indians have ties to the homeland and hold investments there, and they do not want to break their national ties which citizenship requires.

          The board took public comments.  Dennis Galvin told the board that the proponent referenced the twentieth sixth amendment to the US Constitution which says a state cannot deprive any citizen, who is 18 years of age from voting.  Galvin said “the operative word is citizen”.  He offered that the Fourteenth Amendment is more applicable to the discussion. It defines citizen, as a person born or naturalized in the US and it prohibits any state from enacting or enforcing any law, that would abridge the privileges or immunities of a citizen.   If citizens and non-citizens were given equal voting status, obviously some votes cast by a non-citizens, would cancel out the vote of a citizens.  Galvin asserted that this would be an abridgement of a citizen’s voting right.

           Marie Folford, who described herself as a town employee and a non citizen, directly challenged the entire premise of citizenship.   She said, that she has been involved in town government  for years and is in a better position and is more qualified to vote in a local election than a person from Texas, who may have recently moved into town but can claim citizenship.   Another resident, who is a green card holder questioned the claim that citizenship is a lengthy process.  He stated that he has been in this process and noted that it is far more a question of will than of time. Other comments were received both pro and con, with the opposition opinions outweighing the favorable.

            The Select Board took up the matter for deliberation.  All five members; Tom Clay, Chris Barrett, John Cunnigham, Noelle Donovan and Sean Kelly participated.  Town Manager Chris Las informed the board that Iyer’s initiative would need to go before town meeting for a favorable vote.  The threshold for such a vote would be a simply majority.  If the vote passed town meeting, the result of the vote would be forwarded to the state legislature for action on the request to authorize.  Galvin had earlier informed the board, that such an action by the legislature would probably be illegal and that according to town meeting rules it would also be illegal to put such a matter on a warrant.

            Iyer said that her initiative would not allow non-citizens to hold public office, it is intended to simply give them the right to vote.   Las informed the board that non-citizens may serve on all town committees except the Finance Committee.  That is the only committee which is reserved exclusively for citizens.  No formal vote was taken by the board on this matter.  Clay declared that a consensus existed for further action, which would involve drafting a charge for a committee to study non-citizen voting.  The matter was continued to the next Select Board meeting.

In June, the Select Board voted to form a citizens committee, “Resident Voting Study Committee” comprised of nine members, to study this issue and provide the Select Board with the information needed for them to make a decision.  Six people volunteered for the committee, Cynthia King, Diane Wood, Dennis Galvin, Meghan O’Connell, Anthony DiLeo and Vicky Geary.   At the September meeting, the Select Board decided that they would like to talk to our State Legislative Delegation to get an update on the pending legislation on this topic at the state level.  That meeting would not take place until October 28th at the earliest.  Consequently, they decided to delay the impaneling of this committee until after that update could be obtained.   They also guaranteed that the committee would eventually be formed, the current volunteers, pending appointment, would not be excluded and no decision would be made on this topic without recommendations from the committee.

Meeting recording: