election tomorrow

[cos]

Tomorrow, Tuesday May 15th, is the general election for the open seat on the Somerville Board of Aldermen. The two top candidates from last month's primary, Marty Martinez and Jack Connolly will be on the ballot.

Polls are open 7am - 8pm, and you can find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com. All Somerville voters can vote in this election (election info from the city).

Many people who voted in the primary will forget to vote again tomorrow, so both candidates need some new voters as well as many of their supporters from April as they can get. If you're supporting Jack, this is your chance to make a comeback; if you're supporting Marty, don't assume he'll win. Vote!

Comments

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

So if you moved to Canada or Africa or England you'd expect to be able to vote in their elections, even if you were still a US citizen?

[turil.livejournal.com]

Again, expectations are very different from potentials. We have the potential to give everyone who actually cares about Somerville to have a voice in Somerville issues.

Also, you avoided my question. Why discriminate against someone simply because they happened to live outside of the US before they came to Somerville?

And to at least partially answer your question, yes I would expect to be able to vote in local elections in Canada if I moved there, since that is exactly what would happen. I don't know about Africa or England, but I expect that they might have similar policies as Canada.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Also, you avoided my question. Why discriminate against someone simply because they happened to live outside of the US before they came to Somerville?

If you're going to propose a change to the system, I'd like to know what your proposed system is. Personally, I'd keep the current system but make changes to the immigration laws to make the process of becoming a citizen faster than it is now.

I'm not advocating discriminating against anyone (pretty much all I've done here is ask questions), but I'm trying to understand what your position is.

And to at least partially answer your question, yes I would expect to be able to vote in local elections in Canada if I moved there, since that is exactly what would happen.

Based on what? From my Googling all the sources that I can find say you have to be a citizen (of Canada) to vote in Canada.

I don't know about Africa or England, but I expect that they might have similar policies as Canada.

In which case only citizens could vote. There are places that allow immigrants to vote, but you haven't hit one yet (AFAIK).

I don't (and haven't) objected to allowing immigrants to vote (again, I've only committed the thought crime of asking questions about it), but I would like to see a concrete proposal on the issue from the people who are advocating it.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Canada allows "landed immigrants" to vote in local elections where they live. Admittedly, becoming a landed immigrant is a fairly complex process, but that's sort of beside the point :-)

And as for a proposed policy, it depends on who you ask. Cambridge has one. My own policy would be more indepth. I'd let anyone vote who wanted to, but only if they participated in some kind of community program and/or took a class on Somerville issues, so that they at least had some solid basis for making good decisions about Somerville issues.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Canada allows "landed immigrants" to vote in local elections where they live.

Do you have a pointer for that? I Googled "Canadian landed immigrants" to see if that got a different result, and it didn't. And they call them "Permanent Residents" now, just like we do (if you can believe Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_resident_(Canada)

According to that page, Permanent/Landed Residents can't vote.

I'd let anyone vote who wanted to, but only if they participated in some kind of community program and/or took a class on Somerville issues, so that they at least had some solid basis for making good decisions about Somerville issues.

Do you have to pass the class, or just attend it?

[penny-chase.livejournal.com]

From Wikipedia it wasn't clear to me if landed immigrants can vote in local elections, but according to the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrant's web site, at least in Ontario, only citizens can vote in local elections (see http://www.settlement.org/sys/faqs_detail.asp?faq_id=4000564). From Googling, I gather that this was a campaign issue in last year's election for the mayor of Toronto.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I'd let anyone vote who wanted to, but only if they participated in some kind of community program and/or took a class on Somerville issues, so that they at least had some solid basis for making good decisions about Somerville issues.

You're aware that this is the kind of thing you have to do to become a US citizen, right?