Thread: MD - College Park to allow non-US citizens the right to vote in local elections

By: Evan Lambert, fox5dc.com staff
POSTED: SEP 12 2017 08:15PM EDT
VIDEO POSTED: SEP 13 2017 12:01PM EDT
UPDATED: SEP 13 2017 01:07PM EDT

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The College Park City Council has voted in favor of a measure that would allow city residents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in local elections.

College Park joins six other towns in allowing legal permanent residents and undocumented immigrants to vote in municipal elections.

The council's vote on this issue was supposed to happen back in August, but it was postponed due to threats made to council members over the proposal.

It was a very contentious debate inside College Park City Hall as almost two dozen people signed up to speak on the matter during Tuesday night’s meeting.

(video within tweet)
FOX 5 DC ✔ @fox5dc
College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn explains city's decision to allow non-US citizens to vote in local elections http://bit.ly/2eUPmZa
8:07 AM - Sep 13, 2017

One man against the proposal came to the podium saying he was called a Nazi while waiting in line to voice his opinion.

“The reality is allowing all people to vote in municipal elections is going to make College Park more inclusive, and that has been the history of voting rights expansion in the United States and what has happened in our neighbors in Maryland who have expanded voting rights to non-U.S. citizens,” said Todd Larson, who is in favor of the proposal.

“Although you come up here and you say that there are hundreds of citizens and residents of College Park that are for this charter, I can tell you that there are thousands against it,” said Beth Debrosky, who is against non-citizen voting. “Voting is a right of the citizens. It's plain and clear. It's constitutional. It's also written at the state level and it also belongs at the local level.”

Later into the meeting, a council member proposed a new amendment that would only allow green card holders to vote and exclude undocumented immigrants. However, the vote on the green card amendment failed.

http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-new...ocal-elections

Disgusting.

It should not be allowed. Hopefully this will be changed by citizen outrage. The more foreign citizens within our borders, through legal and illegal immigration, refugee resettlement, the more we will see actions such as this.

Foreign citizens will not vote in the best interests of the American people. They want the give-me handouts.

Election watchdog warns of Americans becoming desensitized to noncitizens' casting ballots

by Edmund Kozak | Updated 14 Sep 2017 at 6:25 AM

The city of College Park, Maryland, voted on Tuesday night to grant illegal immigrants the right to vote in its local elections.

After a close vote that saw the measure pass with four votes for, three against, and one abstention, all illegal aliens, foreigners with student visas, and green card holders received a green light to participate in the city’s electoral contests.

“It’s not a big surprise at all, and it fits in to be a larger trend in Maryland,” Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told LifeZette. “There’s a handful of very small local jurisdictions, like towns and school boards, that fit the same bill and have allowed noncitizens to vote.”

"Their argument is, 'Well, they live here, too, and their children are impacted by the policies of these political jurisdictions, so of course they should have the vote,' or that their sales tax purchases go to local issues, etc," Churchwell told LifeZette. "That's the argument they try to make — it's just more inclusive civics, as it were."

But "the larger play here is they can experiment with these things and not have to worry about political blowback, and they also don't have to worry about constitutional issues in their state courts because their constitution gives them the opportunity … to determine voter eligibility rules for their own local elections," explained Churchwell.

Immigrants clearly make up a significant portion of the population of College Park. According to The Washington Post, "about 20 percent of College Park's 32,275 residents are *foreign-born ... The University of Maryland campus, with more than 27,000 undergraduates, has about 3,600 international students."

But Churchwell told LifeZette that unlike the Democrats' general desire to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, which is blatantly based on the desire for more electoral votes, something much different is at play in Maryland.

"It's not like they're to impact elections now or next week or next year," said Churchwell. What "I always remind people is, number one, do not get caught up in the constitutionality, because it's totally legal. Don't get caught up in the trying to throw elections one way or the other. But, most importantly, be cognizant of the fact that the architects of this type of legislation, regardless of jurisdiction size, are trying to incrementally desensitize the American citizen and the American voter to the idea that noncitizens, non-Americans, can and should vote."

Churchwell continued: "All you've got to do is look at [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)]. Just rewind the tape on DACA, because originally people said that 'They're in the shadows, we feel sorry for them,' and then it was, 'Well, the people we're most worried about came here as children, and they only know America, they don't know Mexico, they were two when they came here.' Now it's, 'What are we going to do, are we just going to send them home, split up families, they only know this country, they're [as] American as you and me, they were just born in a different place.'"

Churchwell stressed that the key to the Left's being able to normalize something as radical as allowing noncitizen voting is doing so slowly and incrementally. "They're trying to normalize it, just as [they normalized] not throwing a fit that illegal immigrants are clogging up your emergency room or waiting room, or getting access to subsidized insurance coverage in places like California," he said.

"One of the last categories that we still reserve for United States citizens is voting rights," Churchwell continued. "You've got to chisel away at that, and you can't do it overnight. If Maryland decided to pass a law that said if you want to vote for a state officer, not a federal one, but from the governor down — that would go down in flames if they tried to do it in a very quick timeline."

"But by very slowly letting these little townships and these school boards and so on, over time that big reformer will be able to say, 'Hey, look, half of our townships allow this anyway, why won't we let them vote for their state representative?'" said Churchwell. "It's that incremental approach — that's what wins the day here."

http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/t...right-to-vote/

It's the globalists march to open borders and one world government.

They are aiding and abetting illegal aliens disobeying our Federal Laws

Send in the Feds to arrest them and relieve them of their duties

We cannot allow these States to continue to go Rogue and destroy this country

"Their argument is, 'Well, they live here, too, and their children are impacted by the policies of these political jurisdictions, so of course they should have the vote,' or that their sales tax purchases go to local issues, etc," Churchwell told LifeZette. "That's the argument they try to make — it's just more inclusive civics, as it were."

We're talking about mostly transient residents, and many of them there illegally. They should have no say in the destiny of your community, town, or city. Many of them could be gone tomorrow. They do not represent your future.

They would NOT be impacted by the policies of the local political jurisdictions if they were NOT in the country illegally!

No vote...no path to stay...they can go VOTE in their country.

This is absurd and must be shot down by the Attorney General "as it were".

Breaking: Non-Citizen Voting Reversed in College Park

Larry Provost
Posted: Sep 16, 2017 9:46 AM




On Friday night, the City of College Park, Maryland reversed its city council decision that allowed non-citizens of the U.S., including illegal aliens, the right to vote. This was due to council conveniently forgetting that such massive changes to the College Park City Charter require the vote of a supermajority on council as opposed to a simple majority.

Ironically, the law that mandated a supermajority to pass changes to the city charter was enacted just this summer while the proposal to allow illegals and other non-citizens to vote, and was passed 4-3, was voted on only a few months later on September 12, 2017.

As the College Park City Council cannot be trusted to follow its own laws, it is inevitable that certain College Park council members will try to resurrect this issue in line with their lawless, progressive agenda.

As a resident of College Park, the father of an immigrant, a Christian who believes Jesus died for all people, and having served to protect foreign peoples with different backgrounds and religions, I can safely tell you that allowing non-citizens to vote was, and remains, ludicrous.

First, this proposal diluted the meaning of citizenship. Citizenship, with its rights, privileges, and responsibilities is a high calling. Citizenship, for those not born as Americans but wishing to become Americans, means swearing an oath and being willing to bear arms on behalf of the United States while forsaking all foreign allegiances (exceptions to having to take the oath are made for young children for whom, it is expected, their parents will teach them the meaning of citizenship).

My son of 15 years of age recently had to swear this oath. It is not too much ask of people to not only be a certain age to vote, but also to be citizens who are willing to forego all foreign allegiances and being willing to defend this great nation.

How ironic that those who are currently decrying foreign involvement in our elections are the same individuals saying non-citizens should have the vote.
Second, if all the privileges and powers of citizenship are given to non-citizens, then what incentive is there to become a citizen?

Immigrants and non-citizens are not inherently bad people. Most of our country traces its lineage to immigrants. My family just expanded considerably because of an immigrant. However, the proposal is a citizenship issue, not an immigration issue.

Amazingly, while my son was waiting for his citizenship and residing in the U.S., illegal aliens had more rights to benefits than he did.

The leftists pushing this agenda are trying to have it both ways. They talk of inclusiveness but say that those who spoke against the proposed amendment are “racists” and “white supremacists.” The leftists recently succeeded in declaring College Park a sanctuary city in keeping with the national movement. Yet proponents of the proposal say letting non-citizens vote should be a non-issue because voting in local elections only means the gathering of trash.

Really, that’s what leftists think the power to make decisions over people’s lives amount to? Gathering trash? If that’s the case, is the trash really that bad in College Park? If so, perhaps what is really needed is taking out the trash, starting with a new City Council.

The local progressives can’t have it both ways and the truth is they are trying to make a national political statement.

The very definition of progressivism is just that; progressive to where there is no stopping point and that standards are continually lowered politically, economically, and spiritually in the name of creating a bigger political tent and base. This is the leftist mantra. They will never tell us when they are done with their incremental proposals to change our communities and ultimately our nation.

One other thing. If the College Park City Council persists in wanting to let non-citizens vote than perhaps council should divest itself of their power and allow non-members of council to make the decisions of College Park instead of council. That would at least be consistent, for council’s recent amnesia regarding their own voting laws shows they are not fit to govern and vote on behalf of others.

https://townhall.com/columnists/larr...-park-n2382425