A New York City bill allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections became law Sunday after Mayor Eric Adams declined to veto it, The Associated Press reports.
The new "Our City, Our Vote" measure will reportedly enfranchise around 800,000 legal, non-citizen New York City residents, including green card holders and "Dreamers" brought to the U.S. illegally as children and benefiting from deferred action.
The bill passed the City Council in December "despite concerns from more than a dozen lawmakers, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and some constitutional experts," The New York Post reported. Even Adams expressed ambivalence about the proposal before finally announcing Saturday that he supported it.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The city's Board of Elections must submit an implementation plan by July. They will also have to print separate ballots for municipal races since non-citizens will still be barred from voting in statewide and presidential elections.
Non-citizens can vote in all local contests in around a dozen smaller towns in Maryland and Vermont and in San Francisco school board elections. New York is the first major U.S. city to give non-citizens the right to cast ballots in all local races.
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
-
Trump pivots on Epstein vote amid GOP defectionsSpeed Read The president said House Republicans should vote on a forced release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigrationSpeed Read ‘We feel compelled’ to ‘raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,’ the bishops said
-
House releases Epstein emails referencing TrumpSpeed Read The emails suggest Trump knew more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage women than he has claimed
-
Newsom slams Trump’s climate denial at COP30speed read Trump, who has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ declined to send any officials to this week’s summit
-
UK, Colombia halt intel to US over boat attacksSpeed Read Both countries have suspended intelligence sharing with the US over the bombing of civilian boats suspected of drug smuggling
