Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States [Book Review]

Abstract

In February of 1992, Takoma Park, Maryland, a Montgomery County suburb of Washington DC with a population of less than eighteen thousand, attracted national attention by allowing non-citizens, documented and undocumented, to vote in its local elections. What the public and many scholars probably do not realize is that for various periods during the nineteenth century, thirty-seven American states or territories included aliens in their electorates, and that today, forty-five countries allow at least some immigrants to vote in some elections. This book by Ron Hayduk, co-director of the Immigrant Voting Project, is the most comprehensive survey on the subject of immigrant suffrage in the United States, an issue that has been revived as the proportion of immigrants has grown since 1970 and the battles over immigrant rights have correspondingly escalated.

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