Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: renter's role in decision making

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

Actually, it’s more complicated than that.  Federal law prohibits persons not 
US citizens from voting in federal elections.  But what about State and local 
elections?  Well, that’s up to the States and localities.  Historically, many 
States and cities have had periods where they allowed non-US citizens to vote 
in State and local elections, and the while the practice has died out for now, 
it is not illegal by *federal* law.  Also variable is the residency requirement 
itself.  US law allows for absentee ballots, but Israeli law does not; voting 
in an Israeli election requires both citizenship and standing on Israeli ground.

My point is not that I’m a legal expert about voting law.  My point is that 
there are lots of different ways to franchise voters and define citizens.  My 
condo association is legally free to extend (nearly) full franchise to tenants 
in my coho community, if that’s what we want.  And that I’m not able to see or 
understand good reasons for not doing so.

RPD

On Jul 31, 2014, at 2:28 AM, Moz <list [at] moz.geek.nz> wrote:

> 
> R Philip Dowds said:
>> cash flow.  More generally, in America citizenship was long ago
>> divorced from property ownership and instead tied to residency; that
>> strikes me as the better approach.
> 
> Except that US residents can't vote - you have to actually be a citizen for 
> that. AFAIK only New Zealand allows (permanent) residents to vote. The USA 
> just taxes them...
> 
> Moz
> 
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