Professor Hayduk Comments on Suffrage in U.S. for Non-citizens

BALTIMORE SUN -- From the time of the American Revolution to the nation’s westward expansion, federal officials embraced noncitizen suffrage as a way to encourage settlement in new territories. At least 40 states allowed immigrants to vote at some point, said Ron Hayduk, a political scientist at San Francisco State University, and some even extended the vote to federal and state elections.

“The rallying cry of the Revolution was ‘No taxation without representation,’” Hayduk said. “For the Founding Fathers, it was not your citizenship status that defined who could vote.”