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Newly elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation on Jan. 9, allowing over 800,000 documented noncitizens to vote in the city’s local elections.

“New York City is proudly home to millions of working, taxpaying immigrants, yet those who are not U.S. citizens have no power at the ballot box to determine who represents them,” a New York City Council statement reads.

Under this legislation, any New Yorker who is a lawful permanent resident or authorized to work in the U.S. would be eligible to register to vote as a “municipal voter” if they have been a resident of New York City for at least 30 consecutive days, according to the statement.

Such voters will be eligible to vote in any primary, special, general and run-off elections for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president, council member as well as on any local ballot initiative, the statement reads. The New York City Board of Elections will implement a new voter registration system for eligible noncitizen voters in the above races. Eligible noncitizens in New York City will be able to start registering to vote on Dec. 9, 2022 and can begin voting by Jan. 9, 2023.

In Syracuse, despite the large immigrant community, less than half of this population is eligible to vote as of 2019. A 2019 survey conducted by New American Economy shows that out of 40,708 immigrant residents in the Syracuse Metro Area, 19,288, or 47.4%, are eligible to vote.

The survey revealed that immigrants paid a total of $350.6 million in taxes in 2019 and possessed a consumer spending power of $782.7 million in the Syracuse Metro Area. As the baby-boom generation retires, younger immigrants are filling labor shortages at both ends of the skill spectrum, from high-tech industries to manual sectors such as construction and food service, the survey said.

Jana Seal | Asst. Digital Editor

Steven White, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said there’s a split along party lines on legal noncitizen voting. While Democrats are pushing for the expansion of the policy, Republicans have typically been against it, he said.

“Would it happen in a place like Syracuse? It’s not out of the question,” White said. “I don’t get the sense that it’s immediately on the agenda.”

The political environment of Syracuse — a Democratic city with a weak Democratic Party presence and an independent mayor — makes it difficult to determine whether such a policy would pass, White said. He also would not be surprised if people started discussing the legislative proposal.

Having people who live and work in a given community vote is a strong step in the direction of full participatory democracy, said Beth Broadway, president and CEO of InterFaith Works, in an email to The Daily Orange. Though people might see pushback against granting noncitizens political power, carefully crafted laws that allow wider groups to vote would mean that people who are affected by the laws and policies enacted by a government would have a say in who governs them, she said.

InterFaith Works, a central New York-based nonprofit, helps settle refugees in the area. Refugees are not eligible for citizenship until they have been here for five years, though they pay taxes, rent and buy homes, raise children and do all the things that citizens do, Broadway said. Allowing them to vote can be an important part of refugee integration, and it will be interesting to see if Syracuse will push forward this agenda, she said.

“The process for getting citizenship is absurdly long,” and it can take up to 20 years in some circumstances for immigrants to attain the right to vote, said Kevin Dugan, the democracy coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group. Voting in local elections gives immigrants a greater stake in the community and increases trust in government for everyone in the community, not just those who were either born citizens or already attained citizenship, Dugan said.

White said that such issues, such as the allocation of municipal funds to public schools and parks, are unique to local elections because they impact the day-to-day lives of residents, whereas issues debated in national elections tend to be more abstract and focus on the role of government.

“Voting is a sacred right and responsibility of all people,” Broadway said. “And this kind of fresh approach would help address voter apathy, as well as increasing investment in the government and governance of the populace.”

While immigrant and refugee populations may initially tend to be a Democratic voting bloc because of the party’s pro-immigrant policies, these sentiments can change over time as immigrants and refugees assimilate to life in the United States, such as opening their own businesses, White said.

Meanwhile, allowing noncitizens to vote could put additional logistical challenges on local boards of elections, and hence require more governmental investment in the election process, said Dustin Czarny, the Democratic commissioner of Onondaga County’s Board of Elections.

“I’m watching what happens in New York City pretty closely,” Czarny said. “Because I can think of logistical issues, but they’re going to experience it. So I’m going to learn from that.”

If the city of Syracuse allows noncitizens to vote, the Onondaga Board of Elections will need a separate voter registration system to identify citizens who can vote at every level of government and those who can only vote in local elections, Czarny said.

Currently, the names of candidates for different races in the same election cycle are printed on the same ballot. If noncitizens are allowed to vote, it would require different ballot styles that are designed specifically for local elections in which they are eligible to vote, Czarny said.

Additionally, English and Spanish are the only two ballot languages available in Syracuse. Given the size of the refugee and immigrant population, the Onondaga Board of Elections will also need to translate the ballot into more languages.

Right now, there are around 40 on-demand ballot printers set up in major polling stations county-wide, Czarny said. It would require 30 to 40 additional printers distributed to every location in the city of Syracuse alone so that voters can receive the correct ballot based on their eligibility and language preference.

White said that it might be more difficult for such legislation to pass on the county level than the city level because of a smaller Democratic presence.

“I would ask anybody who’s considering this option, at least let us see what happens in New York City over the next couple of cycles … before we jump on this bandwagon and do something,” Czarny said. “Let’s see how it works in another municipality and then learn from their mistakes and then decide whether we want to do it.”

Published on January 24, 2022 at 11:50 pm

Contact Francis: btang05@syr.edu | @francis_towne