Fox News reporter Eric Shawn joined Marc Cox this week with an update on the new law which will allow non-citizen voting in elections in New York City. The measure, which new Mayor Eric Adams allowed to become law on Sunday, would allow an additional approximately 800-thousand people a vote in municipal elections. The City Council approved the new rules a month ago.
"About 10% of the city's population, 800-thousand people are non-citizens," says Shawn. "So that's 800 thousand people to vote in the city elections. An assemblyman, a Republican Kevin Byrne of Putnam County, just north of New York City, says, 'wait a minute, the state constitution says you gotta be an American citizen,' but it's not, as he said, so specific. So he's putting on a state constitutional referendum, to be voted on by the people of the state, against this."
Recent polling seems to be opposed to the measure according to Eric Shawn: "Overwhelming number of people do not want non-citizens to vote. 71% do not want non-citizens to vote, that skyrockets to 89% of Republicans don't want non-citizens to vote."
New York City isn't alone in the push to allow non-citizens the right to vote in local elections, as more than a dozen communities nationwide already allow the practice. In none of the areas are non-citizens allowed to vote in state or federal elections.
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