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SUFFRAGETTES AND IMMIGRANTS he Immigrant Voting Project Women's Suffrage and Immigrant Voting Rights in Massachusetts
Massachusetts has long been a leader in electoral reforms aimed at increasing civic participation in local elections. National women's suffrage leaders from Massachusetts included Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. In 1879, forty years before the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, women in Massachusetts were allowed to vote in school committee, tax and bond elections. In 1942, Cambridge implemented Plan E enacting the unique proportional voting system that has served as a national model for "Instant Runoff Voting." In 1996 and 2000 respectively, the local governments of Amherst and Cambridge approved sending Home Rule Petitions to the state legislature to expand the franchise to certain noncitizen immigrant local residents for the purposes of municipal elections. These bills are currently before the Joint Committee on Elections Laws as SB 2029 and HB 4540. -- Testimony to Joint Committee on Elections Laws, March 16, 2004 Kathy Coll from the Cambridge Campaign for Immigrant Voting Rights says, "Our movement owes a tremendous debt to those who've struggled for the right to vote before us. Cambridge has a long tradition of sharing the vote. For example, in 1879, forty years before the federal government enfranchised women, women in Cambridge were enfranchised in School Board, tax and bond elections. "In addition to being surprised when they learn about the long history of noncitizen voting in the U.S., public officials are often most impressed when they learn about the terribly long timeline to naturalization for so many immigrants. Most non-immigrants don't realize that depending on your nationality and visa status upon entry, that you can wait twenty years to become eligible to naturalize. This situation has gotten worse rather than better in the last ten years of changes to federal immigration law. It's not "just" about backlogs, but about institutional barriers to even obtaining the legal permanent resident status, much less citizenship. How many people are disenfranchised and underrepresented during all those years? How many U.S.-born as well as immigrant children are without political representation through the exclusion of their parents from local elections? Immigrants who have/are themselves going through these long and complicated processes offer the most compelling personal testimonies about the importance of noncitizen voting in our meetings with elected officials."
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