The right to democracy should not depend on citizenship status.
Migrants constitute a significant number of our societies and contribute a high level of revenue, yet without universal suffrage they are the blind spot of democracy.
Image: Stanislaw Buczkowski
Do you remember how old you were when you voted for the very first time? I can’t remember that detail, but I know it must have been in my early childhood. My mum ran a rather democratic household. At least when it came to rules governing the use of our TV set. Having five children but only one screen she had no choice but to introduce a voting system to avoid violence and unrest. My mother’s respect for each of our votes as equals has taught me two things. First, my vote is my power. Second, collective decision-making must include the voices of all concerned.
The right to vote is a right to have power. The meaning of democracy is ‘power of people’, and the history of democracy is a history of recognizing who is ‘people’. At the beginning of democracy ‘people’ were only men of means and status. We went through a long process to expand our understanding of democracy and peoplehood by including men of no means, women, women of no means, Black men, and Black women. Who should be next on the list?
Migrants.
Voting rights for non-citizen migrants isn’t a new or unusual idea. Over 45 countries allow non-citizen migrants to vote in elections. In most instances, electoral inclusion of migrants is at a municipal level, however, 5 countries offer universal suffrage. In the US migrants could not only vote but also stand for elections in different states up to 1926. Currently, 15 municipalities across Maryland, California, Washington DC, and Vermont allow non-citizen immigrants to vote. Other cities like Chicago and New York have seen efforts in recent years to expand voting rights.
“No taxation without representation” was the slogan marking the beginning of US democracy. It should be a guiding principle of democracy today.
It is hard to challenge the fairness of this argument especially when you look at the level of migrants’ tax contributions. In the US in 2019 migrants contributed $467.5B in revenue. That is more than the Medicaid budget for that year. The 2015 European Commission report on the fiscal impact of migration found that migrants on average contributed about 250 euro per year more than natives to the welfare state. Yet, migrants cannot influence how their hard-earned tax money will be distributed as they cannot vote for the elected representatives who decide on budgets.
Having a right to vote means having the right to democracy.
Democracy means that everyone should have the right to participate in decisions that affect their daily lives. Participation of as many as possible in elections is also a common good. The lack of universal suffrage for migrants accounts for a similar deficit caused by low voter turnout and voter suppression tactics. All those practices result in the election of an unrepresentative government with decreased legitimacy. 1 in 14 US residents are non-citizen migrants. In places like New York, that number grows to 1 in 7. In Ireland 1 in 8 are migrants. It is not a full and inclusive democracy when much of the population is excluded from a democratic fundamental right to vote.
My experience with voting rights as a migrant non-citizen goes beyond the question of having the right to democracy. It is a question of dignity too. As Saul Alinsky said ‘Danial of opportunity for participation is a denial of human dignity and democracy’. This is a perspective missing from the political and academic discussion that circulates in the public domain. What is also missing from the discussion are the voices of migrants.
When at the age of 22 I left Poland to become a migrant worker in Ireland I had to redefine my whole life. That included my presence in democratic spaces. During election season it felt strange to look at the faces on election posters thinking that none of those people built their political agenda with me in mind. As if I was invisible. Even though I was subject to the decisions they made I was part of no one’s constituency. I felt like the blind spot of democracy.
One evening an election candidate knocked at my door. Through an apologetic smile, I said, ‘I can’t vote’. I felt humiliated that I had to admit to this stranger that I am not an equal member of society and that I am voiceless. I was just about o close my door when he said that in Ireland everyone regardless of their citizenship status can vote in local elections. It was that moment when I regained a new sense of dignity and visibility as an immigrant. I had a voice because I had a vote.
Some will object that voting is a privilege of citizenship. The right to vote is not an essence of citizenship as it is not a legal duty of citizenship. What’s more, the history of suffrage shows that voting rights were never about citizenship but about status, gender, and race. Citizenship did not guarantee and still does not guarantee a right to vote. That is why we are witnessing systemic voter suppression in the US and other democratic States. There are also political systems that subscribe to the notion of citizenship but prohibit voting.
The right to vote is the essence of democracy, not citizenship.
Democracy is a constant work in progress. Expanding voting rights is about achieving full democracy not a challenge to the value of citizenship. Little over a hundred years ago granting voting rights to citizen women was seen as a preposterous idea threatening the democratic system. Look at us now. Where would our democracy be if women’s suffrage did not happen?
The right to vote is a right to have power, and democracy means ‘power of people’. Ain’t I people? Ain’t migrants people?
