David C. Earnest, Voting Rights for Resident Aliens -- 1
In this era of large-scale migration, the number of resident
aliens in democracies has grown explosively. This presents both moral
and practical dilemmas for democratic governments and their societies.
For those states from which large numbers of citizens emigrate, or
“sending” states, their diasporae may have considerable economic
influence through their remittances and may wield political power
through contributions to political parties, informal personal networks
and, in some states, the absentee ballot. For democracies that host
large numbers of resident aliens, governments ask resident aliens to
shoulder many of the burdens of citizens--including, most
conspicuously, the paying of taxes but also (at least in the United
States) military service. Yet both in sending states and in host
states, resident aliens have had few political rights until recently.
While host democracies have offered resident aliens considerable
economic and civil rights, they have provided to aliens only limited
opportunities to participate in the politics of their places of
residence. Likewise, for the most part sending states have, until
recently, reserved voting rights for citizens who reside within the
borders of the state. Until the last few decades, then, resident aliens
have lacked the political rights that democracies grant their citizens.
Resident aliens were perhaps the one remaining societal group against
which democratic states willingly, and some might say legitimately,
discriminated in the allocation of the right to vote.
In the last four decades, this has changed. During this time
democracies have seen a large influx of migrants who have come to
reside more or less permanently within their host states, and have
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