Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States (Paperback)

by Ron Hayduk (Author) "Riayan Tejeda grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City and joined the Marines after graduating from George Washington High School..." (more)
Key Phrases: immigrant voting rights, noncitizen voting rights, adult noncitizen population, San Francisco, United States, Takoma Park (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Democracy for All is the most thoroughgoing exploration we have of non-citizen voting in the United States, past and present. The issues raised by Hayduk's book - particularly at a time of high rates of immigration - ought to inform public debate in communities across the nation.
–Alexander Keyssar, Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard University, and author of The Right to Vote

Democracy for All is the most thoroughgoing exploration we have of non-citizen voting in the United States, past and present. The issues raised by Hayduks book - particularly at a time of high rates of immigration - ought to inform public debate in communities across the nation.
–Alexander Keyssar, Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard University, and author of The Right to Vote

Millions of long-term non-citizen residents abide in the United States without any formal representation in its democratic political system. Hayduk provides a thorough, and much-needed brief outlining the history, contemporary status, and arguments for (and against) non-citizen voting in the U.S. An excellent source for an important question in American politics today.
–Michael Jones-Correa, Department of Government, Cornell University

This is an immensely valuable and promising project...tackled in a serious and through way. This book has a chance to speak to a broad national audience in a clear and accessible manner.
–Jamin Raskin, author of Overruling Democracy

This passionately argued and thoroughly documented work is the best single study of whether to grant electoral rights to immigrant non-citizens. Hayduk carefully, clearly, and compellingly dissects the past, present, and future of one of our era's most important civil rights challenges.
–John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, City University Graduate Center

This passionately argued and thoroughly documented work is the best single study of whether to grant electoral rights to immigrant non-citizens. Hayduk carefully, clearly, and compellingly dissects the past, present, and future of one of our eras most important civil rights challenges.
–John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, City University Graduate Center

Product Description
Voting is for citizens only, right? Not exactly. It is not widely known that immigrants, or noncitizens, currently vote in local elections in over a half dozen cities and towns in the U.S.; nor that campaigns to expand the franchise to noncitizens have been launched in at least a dozen other jurisdictions from coast to coast over the past decade. These practices have their roots in another little-known fact: for most of the country's history - from the founding until the 1920s - noncitizens voted in forty states and federal territories in local, state, and even federal elections, and also held public office such as alderman, coroner, and school board member. Globally, over forty countries on nearly every continent permit voting by noncitizens. Legal immigrants, or resident aliens, pay taxes, own businesses and homes, send their children to public schools, and can be drafted or serve in the military, yet proposals to grant them voting rights are often met with great resistance. But, in a country where "no taxation without representation" was once a rallying cry for revolution, such a proposition may not, after all, be so outlandish.

Democracy for All examines the politics and practices of noncitizen voting in the United States, chronicling the rise and fall - and re-emergence - of immigrant voting in the U.S. In addition to making the case for noncitizen voting, this book takes a close look at the politics of and actors in recent campaigns that successfully reestablished noncitizen voting, others that failed, and ones that are currently underway. Democracy for All explores the prospects for a truly universal suffrage in America.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; New edition edition (January 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415950732
• ISBN-13: 978-0415950732
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #933,063 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)