[Two stories from New York City; it looks like the City has leeway to grant voting rights for local elections.  For more on noncitizen voting rights, check out Ron Hayduk’s book Democracy For All.]

Alliance Backs Voting Rights for Noncitizens
By Sewell Chan
The New York Times, February 20, 2007

New York City should allow legal immigrants who are not citizens to vote in local elections, according to an alliance of more than 60 organizations that announced a renewed effort yesterday to secure that right.

The alliance, the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, called on the City Council and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to support a bill, introduced by Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn, that would allow legal immigrants who have been in the country for more than six months to vote in elections for mayor, comptroller and public advocate, as well as for the five borough presidents and 51 council members.

The effort started in 2004, after lawyers for the Council reviewed state election law and determined that the city could alter its voting statutes without action by the State Legislature, where noncitizen voting measures were introduced without success three times in the 1990s. Nothing in the State Constitution of 1938 forbids voting by noncitizens.

The local bill has the support of at least 14 council members, but has had trouble attracting broader support. Mr. Bloomberg, a vocal supporter of liberal immigration policies, said in April 2004, “The essence of citizenship is the right to vote, and you should go about becoming a citizen before you get the right to vote.”

Advocates for immigrants said that current law violates the principle of “no taxation without representation”; that it typically takes 8 to 10 years for legal immigrants to achieve citizenship; and that the city allowed noncitizens to vote in local school board elections from 1969 until 2003, when the boards were abolished.

Ron Hayduk, a political scientist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the author of “Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States” (Routledge, 2006), said that until the 1920s, 40 states and territories allowed noncitizens to vote in local, state and even federal elections.

According to Professor Hayduk, Takoma Park and five other communities in Maryland have given noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, and noncitizens may vote in school board races in Chicago. In Massachusetts, Amherst and Cambridge have approved noncitizen voting, but the measures depend on approval by the State Legislature, and have not yet received it.

At a City Hall news conference, the New York City coalition — including the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Community Service Society, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and dozens of other groups — vowed to draw more attention to the issue, in part by getting its message out through the ethnic and immigrant press.

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Council race shows district’s diversity
Brooklyn’s special election candidates from Haiti, Pakistan could make history with if they win seat
The Associated Press, February 20, 2007

The field of 10 hopefuls jostling for an open seat on the City Council in Brooklyn includes a former UN ambassador and two candidates who would make history as either the first Pakistani Council member or the first Haitian.

Today’s special election will fill that Brooklyn seat in District 40 and another on Staten Island in District 51, both vacated by officials elected to higher office in November.

In Brooklyn, Democrat Yvette Clarke left her post to serve in Congress, succeeding retiring Rep. Major Owens. She had represented that Council district in central Brooklyn since 2002, and previously, the seat was held by her mother, Una Clarke, who was the first Caribbean-born Council member. The area straddles the Crown Heights and Flatbush neighborhoods and has a large immigrant population, many from the Caribbean.

‘It sort of reflects all of New York in the sense that this melting pot society is represented by this one district,’ said political consultant Stefan Friedman, who was communications director for Yvette Clarke’s congressional campaign. ‘Every sort of possible demographic happens to be within this district - that’s why you’ve seen a huge number of candidates coming out for this seat.’

The pack includes contenders who trace their heritage to Panama, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Haiti and Pakistan, plus one Jewish candidate.

Among the competitors is Joel Toney, who served as United Nations ambassador for his home nation, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a Caribbean island chain of about 118,000 people. He also has been active on community boards in Brooklyn for many years.

Mohammad Razvi would be the City Council’s first Pakistani member if elected. The former business owner now serves as executive director at the Council of Peoples Organizations, a nonprofit he founded to advocate for South Asians.

One of his strengths, he said, is working with the many cultures that coexist in the district.

‘It’s an example of peace on earth - there are individuals from all these communities living side by side,’ he said. ‘I’m a uniting person, inclusive to everyone.’

The 51-member Council also could get its first Haitian, if physician Mathieu Eugene were to win.

In the weeks since the date of the special election was announced, the candidates have been raising money, campaigning at subway stops, knocking on doors, sending out mailings and competing for endorsements.

Voters have just two choices in the race on Staten Island, where Andrew Lanza left an open seat after he was elected to the State Senate.

His former aide, Republican state Assemb. Vincent Ignizio, is running against Democrat Manny Innamorato, who manages technology for Yonkers and has worked for city agencies.