Should non-citizens be allowed to vote in local elections? Somerville is the latest city to ask the question.

This sounds like it would be difficult and dangerous to implement at scale.

The main problem would probably be that it is against federal law for immigrants without permanent residency to be involved in elections and campaigns in a bunch of ways - especially in making contributions to them - and it is also against federal law to go out and solicit the help of immigrants without permanent residency in making political contributions.

So, among other things, you'd have to check everybody at the polling places to see if they have permanent residency to make sure they're not breaking federal law, and as the article mentions, as a Sanctuary City, Somerville is generally against doing that.

But even if you got it up and running you'd be putting a big target on your back. Curtatone probably relishes the attention, but people like James O'Keefe and Brett Kavanaugh are probably salivating at this. So it could get dicey.

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