A missed opportunity last night: Article 43, reducing voting age

[Deepika Sawhney]

Dear Town Meeting Members,

Article 43 was not passed by a narrow margin of just 2 votes. It was a missed opportunity to improve our practice of democracy in Lexington. For explanation:

In our town we have a growing population of people from the South Asian subcontinent. Their path to citizenship can be 20 years. Other Asian immigrants have similar waits. Meanwhile the children are born as full citizens. They have never seen their elders vote, even if their own schools are the nearest polling booths. 

We all know modeling desired behaviours is one of the most powerful forms of education. I had hoped that with the passage of this article, ballot issues, the quality of municipal candidates and similar town based concerns would become accessible and immediate for all families.  And in a reversal of roles, the children could vote and model the right behaviour for their immigrant parents. By 18, they have usually left the town for colleges elsewhere.

For most, being a citizen becomes real when you first vote. There are automatic privileges and a self-worth acquired with that simple act. This can not be achieved by the mere payment of a town's property taxes.

Look around at the volunteers and elected leaders in our committees and boards. Even in the appointed positions most of the people serving are citizens. (Except for my Aussie friend Dan Voss, but he has oodles of Australian charm, and is the exception which proves the rule). For most non-citizens their path to community contribution and leadership tends to stop at cultural events. Stepping into town or school impacting roles, even appointed, usually takes the self worth and confidence of being a citizen. One has then truly 'arrived'.

Would allowing the youth of such families to vote at age 16, change that dynamic? I am not sure.  But it adds to the feeling that one belongs and has agency, even if vicariously through the children. 

Deepika Sawhney

(Precinct 6)

[Vicki Blier]

I would support allowing non-citizen Lexington residents over the age of 18 to vote in local elections.

Vicki Blier

Pct. 9

781-862-1804 Landline First

617-549-3207 Mobile

    

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[Edward Dolan]

For me this was not a missed opportunity, but a conscious choice -- not an easy choice, but a deliberate one.

Not only would I support opening the door to non-citizen Lexington residents over the age of 18 to vote in local elections; until we do that, I don't see myself supporting lowering the voting age to 16.  And that is largely for the reasons Deepika cites in her email.  Let's start with those who are uncontested adults: people who are taxpayers, helping shoulder the burden of property taxes and, in some cases, business taxes.

We don't do that partly because of the fiction that voting always requires citizenship.  Until almost exactly 100 years ago -- 1926, to be exact -- voting rights were extended to non-citizens in various states and scattered municipalities almost from the founding of this country.  Indeed, early on, the federal government got in on it by offering voting rights to non-citizen white Europeans who would come to settle on Native American soil in what we then called the Northwest Territories.  Over the last 5 years both San Francisco and New York City have passed laws to welcome non-citizens into their polling places.

Next year, in front of people from around the United States and the world we will celebrate the slogan, "No Taxation Without Representation"; but we will conveniently forget our expectation of taxes from non-citizen residents.  And in the next few years we will ask Lexington residents to pass a referendum for the biggest expenditure in Lexington history -- and probably the largest for at least the next half century; but non-citizen parents of Lexington school children will not be able to participate in the vote.

Let us all -- including Lexington school children in our excellent civics programs -- commit to rectifying this injustice.  That's the modeling of democratic behaviors that we owe to our students. 

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Edward Dolan

66 Potter Pond

Lexington, MA  02421

617-312-6646