 Good afternoon. I'm Sonia Schuyler and I am a member of the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of Vermont and I'd like to welcome you to this information meeting about non-citizen voting. I want to thank our co-sponsors, the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Network, and we have Jan Stanbauer and Hannah Martin here from that organization. The University Unitarian Universalist Church Justice Team here and Bernie Carver is here representing that. I should have checked that and we have Kate Hepner from Town Meeting TV and we want to thank the Fletcher Free Library and Barbara Shatera who helps us schedule programs here. The League of Women Voters has not taken a position on the ballot item in Burlington. We do have a committee that has been studying non-citizen voting and our presenter here, Marguerite Edelman, has been chair of that committee and we thought this would be a good time for the residents of Burlington to share, to learn from the information that the committee has gathered about non-citizen voting. We'll have the presentation first and then there'll be time for questions afterwards. Marguerite, I should begin by saying that I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an expert necessarily in this topic, but it has fascinated me because I am a Winooski resident and as you know Winooski did pass non-citizen or resident voting last year and we had our first election with non-citizens. So for me the the topic has become very interesting and I've set up my Google Alerts and almost literally every day I get something extremely thought-provoking, controversial on this particular topic. So we thought that it would be a good idea since the League hasn't taken a stand to present a more factual kind of overview of what's happening at the national level historically and here particularly in Vermont. So I just want to begin with the whole area of the history of non-citizen voting in our country and as you know, you know the legal women voters is very concerned about voting and has studied that topic for a long time and voting used to be primarily restricted to white male property owners. They were the ones who got to vote and race, gender, class, non-citizenship were often factors that mattered in who could run for office, who could vote and etc. It's interesting to note that basically since 1926 over 40 states or territories have at some time given non-citizens some voting rights at the local level and some or all elections. So this is not a new concept historically. What is important to note in the US is that federal law prohibits non-citizen voting in federal elections only. Okay, so that is set by law. But some state constitutions, actually no state constitutions, specifically allow for non-citizen voting and that's an important consideration as well. They don't deny, you know, they don't say that non-citizens can't vote, in some cases can vote. But some interesting things have happened within the last, I'd say, months. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut have proposed laws in their state legislators that would allow municipalities and or the state itself to allow non-citizens to vote. And in Connecticut, the legislator who proposed the bill is including illegal immigrants, which is rare in this country anywhere. In most places, it's legal residents or legal individuals. Illinois Senate has also proposed a law that would allow parents and guardians who are non-citizens and have school-aged children to vote in school elections. And that was just proposed as well. So there's three states that are making statewide action or trying to, obviously it hasn't passed yet, that would make major changes in voting in those particular states. So there are state constitutions that ban non-citizen voting. And five of these states have only banned non-citizen voting within the last three to four years. Those states are Louisiana, Ohio, Colorado, Florida and Alabama. Both Arizona and North Dakota have had a ban on non-citizen voting for a while. So now we have seven states, and it's interesting. It tells you what's happened politically, that it has become a very hot topic. And that we expect that we're going to see even more states proposing legislation to ban non-citizen voting. So there are states that don't have roadblocks to non-citizen voting, basically have a couple of things that they need to have. So the municipality can actually expand voting rights in local elections if there's no explicit state constitutional or legislative impediment. And so long as local jurisdictions have the power of home rule. And that's the concept of state rule, home rule, kind of balancing the levels of power within government. Some states require that changes to local charters need to get approval from state legislators. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. But Vermont is a good example of that when I talk about the process that Winooski and Mount Peale here had to go through. So states that have smooth sailing, in other words, there are no impediments at this time. Two municipalities passing their own voter qualification laws are Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. So those are the states where there are no real impediments. That doesn't mean that if they decide to do something to allow non-citizen voting at a statewide level or even a municipal level, that they wouldn't end up with lawsuits just as we did here in Vermont. The states that have roadblocks to non-citizen voting are 11. And some of those are the states that have recently passed legislation to change the Constitution to ban non-citizens from voting. And that's Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and North Dakota. So where non-citizen voting is being considered or has already been approved. Boston, Massachusetts right now is seriously considering, like New York City did, non-citizen voting. And there are a number of groups that are working on the issue there. Chicago, Illinois, Portland, Maine. And in Portland, Maine, the commission, let me get my glasses. The Charter Commission has already approved non-citizen voting, but it still needs to go through a process before it becomes an actuality. San Jose, California, Worcester, Massachusetts. And I would also add besides Worcester, there's Amherst and Cambridge. The problem in that state is while they have approved non-citizen voting at the local level, it's just sat on deaths in the legislature and hasn't been through the entire process. So while they've approved it at the local level, it hasn't gone anywhere. Syracuse, New York, and Washington, DC. Interestingly enough, Washington, DC did pass non-citizen voting within their city municipality. In fact, one of the articles I read said that Washington, DC actually has more voters in Vermont, more citizens and voters in Vermont. So they should just definitely get their rights to vote because they can't even vote in federal elections yet. But they are looking at non-citizens and they have approved giving non-citizens the right to vote. This is one of the most controversial areas. If you haven't heard the House pass, because in Washington, non-citizen voting needs to be approved by the federal government. So the House has already voted against it. We don't know if the Senate's going to take it up or where it's going to go if the Senate passes it. So at this point, it's just kind of in limbo. So some of the US cities with non-citizen voting are 11 cities in Maryland. What I find really interesting is that Barnsville in Maryland gave non-citizens the right to vote since 1918. Somerset in Maryland was 1976 and Tacoma Park was 1993. Which tells you that in some places this has not been controversial and it's been going on for quite a while. The two cities in Vermont, you know, Winooski and Montpelier, and they're relatively new on the scene. We're lucky that the Supreme Court here in Vermont just ruled that it is not against the Vermont Constitution for the two cities, Winooski and Montpelier, to have non-citizen voting. In San Francisco and Oakland, non-citizens can only vote at this point in time in school board elections. That was what they wanted to be able to give non-citizens the right to vote in. And that has been challenged in court, but it has not, interestingly enough, stopped the voting practice. So they've been able to continue to vote there until there's a resolution in the courts. In New York City, on the other hand, the voting rights that were given to non-citizens and passed in New York City are presently in appeal. And those individuals, non-citizens, will not be voting until that appeal is resolved one way or the other. So there is a lot of money being spent on lawsuits. So non-citizen voting, this is also fascinating. So you get a sense of how absolutely diverse the whole issue is and how it's done in different parts of the country. In some cities, non-citizens can only vote in school elections. Sometimes they can only vote in city elections, and sometimes they can vote in both. And in some cities, non-citizens can run for local city council and or for school board positions, and in others, they can't. And we'll talk a little bit about Montpelier and how it differs from Winooski. And I don't know if they'll be the same issue. I don't think so in Burlington. So one of the things that cities that decide to go through this process look at is immigration data. You know, we have representatives from various groups here today with information about immigrants in our area and in our state. And this is some interesting data for Vermont. So 4.4% of residents are immigrants, 2% of immigrants are non-citizens, and that's approximately 12,000 people in our state. And the top countries of origin, this really fascinated me. Number one was Canada, which makes sense when you think about it. And then you had Nepal, Jamaica, Philippines, and Bosnia, and Herzegovina, I can't say that very well. So that gives you a sense that, you know, it's not all that you would expect. In our community of Winooski, we have a large African population, so it does differ across the state and in various communities. This also was surprising. More than 9 in 10, 92% of immigrants reported, self-reported speaking English well, or very well. And 50% of adults had a college degree or more. So that was a surprising fact, too, because there's many assumptions about who are these individuals, you know, and what are their education levels, what do we know about them. And in Vermont, we only have 20 DACA recipients. So Montpelier was the first city that actually approved non-citizen voting, and these are their eligibility requirements. Once again, both cities in Vermont require you to be a legal resident of the United States. So any person may register to vote, they have to be a legal resident of the U.S., a resident of the city of Montpelier, and 18 years of age or more. And they have to take the voter's oath. Non-citizens can also run for local offices, but not for the school district positions nor on school district issues. And the reason is that Montpelier school district is Roxbury, Montpelier. So it's a dual school district between two different communities. And because of that, Roxbury would need to approve the same things that Montpelier has approved in order for non-citizens to be able to vote in the school district. And there's some people who would like to see that happen. So what does the city clerk require to do? They have to keep a separate voter registry of non-citizens. And they have to treat and maintain the registry in the exact same manner as the voter checklist. And they have to develop the necessary forms that are needed and the procedures for implementation. Non-citizens get a separate ballot. They get a different ballot because in town meeting day, the March election is the one in which most of the issues that non-citizens can vote on will be on that particular ballot. Although there could be some in the general election and at other times of the year. So this is a history of Montpelier's non-citizen voting. It came up the charter change in November of 2018 to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote. And it won by 65.7% of citizen voters because it took citizens to allow this to pass so that non-citizens could vote. And currently in Montpelier, nine non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote. And in the 2021 town meeting day, only five non-U.S. citizens actually voted. And Winooski, my hometown, it's a little bit different and we'll talk about that. So Winooski's all-resident voting really was a result of some of the things that we know about Winooski. That it's part of the larger Burlington metropolitan area. It's one of the most diverse communities in Vermont and in our region. And that more than 20 languages are actually spoken in our school district. So Winooski facts about the population is the total population is 6,131. 5,041 are native U.S. citizens, 472 are naturalized citizens, and 618 or 10% are not U.S. citizens. But predominantly legal residents. So the estimated household income and living in poverty is just some general facts, but they're kind of interesting when you look at Winooski in relation to the rest of Vermont. So the process in Winooski, and that actually should say Winooski, is that we started with a charter commission that looked at the issue and studied it, just kind of like the League of Women Voters does. They studied the issue, whether it was feasible. They had a number of individuals, including non-citizens on the charter commission to talk about the issue. And then the council had to vote on it to put it on the ballot. It went on the ballot, and current citizens who could vote had to vote on the question to allow non-citizens to vote. Then it had to go to the legislature, the House and the Senate for approval, and then to the government, governor, and then all resident voting could be developed and done. Now, another way you can get the item on a ballot, if you don't go through a charter commission within a city, is through a citizen petition to put a question on the ballot, which is what I think was done the first time they tried to bring that issue up in Winooski, and it did not pass at that time. So it's interesting that, you know, there's more than one way to bring it to a city council. So all resident voting is pretty similar to the Montpelier, except that individuals can vote in the city and in the school district elections and run for office in both. They also can vote, and this may be true in Montpelier, I believe it is, on things like the water district, the solid waste district, and other larger districts that include that community. So the politics. The Winooski charter vote was in November of 2020, and it passed by 71% of individuals who were citizens. And the charter changes were approved by the Vermont House and Senate, but the governor vetoed the charter changes, and his argument was that it was unfair to have different voting rules in different communities. The House and the Senate overrode the governor's veto, and like Montpelier, the GOP filed lawsuits against the city. The lawsuits were dismissed, and the Supreme Court, which recently resolved the case in here in Vermont, said it was not against Vermont's constitution to have non-citizen voting. So Winooski undertook, and a community is not required to do those. Winooski does far more than Montpelier does in this area. Educating non-citizen voters. So Winooski, because it prides itself on its diversity, it has a mission around inclusion, its higher diversity and inclusion coordinator, has actually put all the ballot materials in eight languages. They've done community presentations with translators from the Association of Africans living in Vermont and from some of the other community groups from various communities here. They've done educational videos, and they've done outreach to those immigrant associations. This is not a requirement at all, but Winooski has gone probably above and beyond. So Winooski's first election with all resident voting was in 2022. On election day, 17 non-citizens voted. They were very proud after coming out of the polls that day. The number of registered voters that we have in Winooski was 5,218, but the number of people who actually voted that day was 938. And I'd say that's a real problem still. I think the league would admit too that citizens not voting is really a shame. We just don't get the turnout that I think we should have for local elections that deal with so many important issues. And the total number of non-citizens who are registered to vote right now in Winooski is 56. So this kind of come now to what I call where the discussion can begin. Representing and have collected all the pros and all the cons that we've heard of. And I'm sure there's more. And in this case, we'll start with those arguments against non-citizen voting. So one of them is non-citizens will have to self-identify, which could put them at risk for immigration action. And I'm not going to explain further on these. I just want to present them. The county clerk becomes a keeper of immigration info, which could make it difficult if the federal government were to ask for the info and that resulted in deportations. And citizenship is a privilege and it comes with the opportunities of voting, which shouldn't be given to non-citizens. This is this and the next one are probably the main arguments that we hear around the whole issue of non-citizen voting. Voting is a right for citizens and many non-citizens eligible for citizenship are motivated to apply for citizenship in order to vote. Issues faced by non-citizens are different from those of citizens and more appropriately addressed by citizens. Non-citizen voting might encourage those who are here illegally to register as a legal non-citizen resident and vote. Non-citizen residents who may not speak English or be able to read could have their votes easily manipulated by others. Large numbers of non-citizen residents voting could change the outcome of an election. Non-citizens may move to communities that allow non-citizen voting, changing the culture and the nature of that community. And procedures for non-citizen voting cost the community money, including lawsuits, translations, interpreters, processing separate photo registration forms, reconfiguring web pages and more. Then the arguments for non-citizen voting are as follows. This first one is one of the major ones that we hear, the idea of no taxation without representation. Non-citizens own property, they pay taxes, they contribute to our local economy and should have a voice in local government. Non-citizens are affected by policies and actions of municipal and county governments the same as citizens. Non-citizen schoolchildren are affected by policies and actions of the school district. The citizenship process is costly, takes many years and has an application backlog of over 15 months. Our local economies depend on immigrant and refugee labor. Workers should have a say regardless of citizenship. Non-citizen participation benefits all community members. Non-citizen voting was common at the local, state and even federal level in the U.S.'s first 150 years. In some countries, residency, not citizenship, is seen as a measure of being a legitimate stakeholder in a community. Voting rights are part of the social contract. A just government rests on the consent of the government governed. The vote helps guard against discrimination and bias, often a consequence of political exclusion. The majority of Vermont's immigrants are educated and speak English. Voting participation is correlated to the voting rate of one's parents. Since obtaining citizenship takes many years, the sooner parents are allowed to vote, the more likely their children will later become voting adults. So that's kind of a quick summary of the pros and cons. And there are some additional issues that I just want to bring up because they could form an interesting, really interesting discussion. And some of these you may be familiar with, some not. Pregnant foreigners can, and usually these are people with money by the way, because you have to have money to do this. Travel to the U.S. on a visa and have their baby here. They rent a hotel room, maybe down in Florida for three months, have their baby in the U.S. and then their baby is granted U.S. citizenship by birthright. So is that really fair? Legal non-citizens are subject to selective service and can be drafted. I didn't know that. Why can't they vote if they can give their life for the country they reside in? And a non-citizen can serve in the U.S. military, but U.S. citizenship is not guaranteed to them for doing so. Should it be? Many states don't have meaningful residency requirements for citizens to vote. 23 states have no residency requirements, and most others have around 30 days. And the U.S. allows citizens, U.S. citizens, to hold multiple passports as do many other countries. Should they be allowed to vote if they are residing in another country? So to me, these are additional questions to add into the loop of the pros and cons. I would have to think about some of these a lot more, but to me they're really fascinating. I forgot all about the birthright issue, and I didn't know about the military service issue. I know for a fact that my daughter holds both a Canadian and a U.S. passport, and I believe she voted in both U.S. and Canadian elections. So I'm not going to say whether I think that's right or wrong, but I think it raises some interesting questions. I think that would open us up for discussion if people are interested in talking a little more. I'm Bernie Carver. I'm here representing the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington's Immigration Justice Team. Quite a mouthful, I must say. Anyway, as the name of our group implies, we're about justice for immigrants. And I think many or perhaps most folks don't realize what a broken immigration system we have. Asylum seekers who are in this country legally quite often have to wait five years to have their case adjudicated, and the process of citizenship would be on top of that. So you can be here a long time without having the privilege of voting. And it was interesting to me that Boston is one of the areas considering this. I lived in Boston for about six years, and people like to say it's where the American Revolution started. They just did the paperwork in Philadelphia later. But as many of you recall, they had a Tea Party there, which was about taxation without representation. So this is one of the fundamental grievances that helped start our country, I think, and a big issue for me. And then some folks might say, well, why don't they just become citizens? And our politicians like to say we're the greatest country in the world, which in some ways is true. We have the largest military and the largest economy for now. But in a lot of areas, we are outliers. Gun violence, for example, comes to mind, or health care, or prenatal care, or child care for children under the preschool children. So there are lots of reasons people wouldn't want to be a citizen and maintain their citizenship where their friends and families are and where they're from. Yeah, I would just add on the cost of getting citizenship. It's between $750, $60 to $900. And as you said, you have to wait, even with legal residence status, up to five years. And then the application backlog after you've actually applied could be another 15 months. And you actually, one of the requirements is you can't leave the U.S. six months before you get citizenship from what I understand, which means that if you had to go, you know, because there's a funeral or something, or you needed to go back, you know, to your native country, you wouldn't really be able to do it. You'd have to forfeit the whole citizenship process and start again. So it's an extremely long and cumbersome process. And if you're an individual who also needs English to take the English part of the civic test, there could be waiting lists to get into a class for English. I'm Jan Steinbauer. I'm the chair of a local nonprofit that's now a 501c3. We're about three and a half years old here in Chittenden County. Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network. And I just want to clarify about the length of time. The five years is probably about right for those who are in the defensive track. Not all. Some can be a little faster if they were in what's a special thing called the dedicated docket. But we are working with supporting a one woman who has been waiting at least seven years and probably would be 10 years because she's in a little different track called the affirmative. These are folks who are have come into our country on a visa of some sort, study, work, travel. And then they have the right to claim within one year that they cannot go back to their country of there's fear for their lives or political things have happened that they cannot go back. And it takes a lot longer. You know, the backlog is it's getting worse and worse for that. And so that's a long time I think of this individual. I mean, she is educated, spoke English well, got training in Boston. You know, she probably drew your blood at the hospital and she was working here if you ever get that taken. I mean, there are people who are serving us all the time and are involved. So at any rate, it's just it's a long time to wait before you have any right to do have any say in the local matters at all. Anyone else. What I will say is that I have an information sheet of lots of resources on non-citizen voting. So if you're interested in getting more information, the information sheet is on the league table. And I have a sample registration form for non-citizens for both Montpelier and Winooski. So if you'd like to look at that, you can as well. Gene brought the actual resolution that Burlington is considering. Let me grab my glasses. You might have seen it, but I'll read it. So the charter change is, shall the Charter of the City of Burlington, Acts of 1949, number 298, as amended, be further amended to add Section 8A, Requirements for Legal Resident Voters Who Are Not Citizens, to Title II, Article IV. Qualifications of voters to allow legal residents who are not citizens of the United States, but reside in the United States on a permanent or non-temporary basis, in compliance with federal immigration laws, to register as legal voters for City of Burlington and Burlington School District local elections, and to vote for local officers and on local public questions provided such residents are at least 18 years of age, reside in the City of Burlington, and have taken the voter's oath. So that's what people will be voting on on Tom Meeting Day here in Burlington. Thanks for bringing that. And Gene brought also some sample ballots, so you can take a look at the ballots as well. So I think that's it. I want to thank everyone for coming. And hopefully we'll let you know when this will be airing on Tom Meeting TV. Thank you for taping us today.