‘It’s time for Democrats to radically expand the electorate’
A guest columnist for the New York Times argued this week that “there is no good reason you should have to be a citizen to vote.”
According to the Times, the essay is “part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment.”
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, a New York-based progressive journalist and former senior editor of the Nation, claimed in an opinion piece Wednesday that “it’s time for Democrats to radically expand the electorate.”
How? First by granting permanent legal residents the right to vote. Why? Because, according to Abrahamian, they contribute as much to the country as any natural-born citizen.
“Nearly 15 million people living legally in the United States, most of whom contribute as much as any natural-born American to this country’s civic, cultural and economic life, don’t have a say in matters of politics and policy because we — resident foreign nationals, or ‘aliens’ as we are sometimes called — cannot vote,” Abrahamian wrote.
According to her, the non-citizens who ought to be able to vote include “people with green cards, people here on work visas, and those who arrived in the country as children and are still waiting for permanent papers.”
For @nytopinion I wrote about how the U.S should let aliens (the friendly human kind) vote 👽🇺🇸 https://t.co/HesOgmEv4k
— Atossa Araxia Abrahamian (@atossaaraxia) July 29, 2021
A permanent legal resident herself, Abrahamian argued that “expanding the franchise in this way would give American democracy new life, restore immigrants’ trust in government and send a powerful message of inclusion to the rest of the world.”
By PHIL SHIVER
