Danes need not apply

Should non-citizens be allowed to vote?

Granting voting rights was seen as a way to get newcomers engaged in the civic process. In 1848, Wisconsin established a model that other states soon followed. It simply required residents to declare their intention of becoming citizens before being allowed to vote. Up until the 1920s, when a powerful, antiimmigrant backlash swept the country, 22 states and territories allowed legal immigrants to vote in local elections.

"It was a proven pathway to civic education, political education, and citizenship by giving people a stake in their communities," says Ron Hayduk, a political scientist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

But opponents are unimpressed with the historical analogy. They note that as the nation has expanded voting rights to more and more people, it's also worked to formalize its electoral process. "Things were done in a much more laid-back and informal fashion in the past," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank that favors tighter controls on immigration. "We've made the system much more consistent and predictable, and part of that consistency is an insistence on naturalization before being granted the right to vote."

And let's not forget about the 4.6 million people who couldn't vote in the 2000 federal elections. Should ex-prisoners be allowed to vote?