What about non-citizens and people under 18?

Official voting in United States federal and state elections is limited by law to citizens aged 18 and older, and My Vote Forward does not change or challenge that. Advisory participation is different: existing programs have made different choices, including New York City participatory budgeting, which let residents 16 and older vote regardless of immigration status, and East Belgium’s citizens’ assemblies, which draw from residents aged 16 and older on both the population and foreigners’ registers. Whether a real deployment of the framework should include non-citizens or minors is contested on principled grounds, and the framework’s fixed rule is that every result must state exactly whose views it describes.

The objection in its strongest form

The objection comes from two directions, and both deserve a full statement.

From one direction: advisory input from non-citizens and minors dilutes the voice of the electorate. Officials answer to voters. A ranking that includes people who cannot vote may be presented as public demand while reflecting a different population, and officials who act on it are acting on views their electorate does not necessarily share. Some critics also argue that including non-citizens in civic processes, even advisory ones, erodes the meaning of citizenship and could be a step toward non-citizen voting, which they oppose.

From the other direction: excluding residents who live, work, pay taxes, and attend school in a community from even advisory input silences people directly affected by local decisions. Young people will live longest with the consequences of long-term choices; non-citizen residents use the same schools, roads, and services. A framework that claims to improve participation between elections, the critic says, should not copy the electorate’s boundaries where no law requires it.

Why the objection matters

Eligibility matters for My Vote Forward because it determines what a result means. A ranking from adult citizens and a ranking from all residents 16 and older are different measurements of different populations. If the population is unclear, results will be misused by whichever side benefits. The question also matters because it is politically contested, and a nonpartisan framework must handle it without taking a side on the underlying debate about who should vote in official elections.

Defined terms

• Eligibility: the legal or program rules that determine who may participate. See eligibility.
• Electorate: the people legally entitled to vote in a given election.
• Resident: a person who lives in a jurisdiction, regardless of citizenship.
• Lawful permanent resident: a non-citizen authorized to live permanently in the United States.
• Advisory participation: input with no legal effect, such as a ranking of priorities.

Evidence

United States federal law and the Constitution set the rules for official voting. USA.gov states that you can vote in federal, state, and local elections if you meet requirements beginning with United States citizenship, and that “Non-citizens, including permanent legal residents, cannot vote in federal, state, and most local elections,” while “some areas allow non-citizens to vote in local elections only”.⁠¹ The Twenty-sixth Amendment protects the right to vote of citizens “who are 18 years of age or older” from denial or abridgment on account of age by the United States or any state.⁠²

Advisory and participatory programs have set their own rules. New York City’s participatory budgeting, as described by Celina Su, began with a rule that “residents over age 18, including undocumented immigrants, could vote on the allocations,” and the process lowered the voting age to 16, and the participation age to 14, in 2012.⁠³ Su reports that “Enthusiastic youth participation in neighborhood assemblies was instrumental” in that change.⁠³ See the New York City case.

East Belgium’s permanent citizens’ dialogue draws assembly members by lot from people registered in the population registers or in the foreigners’ register of a municipality in the German-speaking area who have reached the age of sixteen and are not excluded from voting by a court decision.⁠⁴ That is a resident-based rule, not a citizen-based one, for an advisory body. See the Ostbelgien case.

National petitions show another approach. The UK Parliament’s petitions site states that “British citizens and UK residents will be able to sign your petition”.⁠⁵ A petition is advisory: 10,000 signatures bring a government response, and 100,000 lead to consideration for debate, but “Petitions debates don’t end with a vote on whether to implement the request of the petition”.⁠⁵

How comparable systems have handled it

The comparable systems fall into three groups.

• Electorate only. Advisory processes that limit participation to registered voters, so results describe the electorate.
• Residents, with an age floor. East Belgium (16 and older, citizens and registered foreign residents).⁠⁴ and New York City participatory budgeting (16 and older in later cycles, regardless of status)⁠³
• Citizens and residents. UK Parliament petitions.⁠⁵

Each choice is explicit in its rules. The common feature is not where the line is drawn but that it is stated.

Competing interpretations

One interpretation holds that advisory input should mirror the electorate, because the officials who receive it answer to voters. On this view, including non-voters creates a mismatch between the signal and the accountability.

A second interpretation holds that advisory input should reflect everyone affected, because its purpose is information, not decision. On this view, an official who wants to know what residents need should hear from all residents, and can still weigh voters’ views separately.

A third interpretation separates the two cases. Some people who favor including 16 and 17 year olds in civic participation, as a form of civic education, oppose including non-citizens, and some hold the reverse view. On this view, age and citizenship are different questions and should be decided separately.

What the framework answers

My Vote Forward does not choose a side in the debate over official voting eligibility. Its rules:

• Official eligibility is never changed. The framework does not conduct official votes and does not advocate for or against any change to who may vote in official elections. See is this an official voting service?.
• Every deployment states its population. A real pilot would publish its eligibility rule in advance, such as “registered voters,” “adult residents,” or “residents 16 and older.”
• Results are labeled by population. A release says exactly whose views it describes. A resident-based release is never described as “voters.”
• Breakdowns where privacy allows. If a pilot includes more than one group, results can be shown for the electorate alone as well as for all participants, subject to privacy review. See privacy.
• The demo uses simulated data and has no real eligibility rule.

Hypothetical example. A city pilots priority-setting with all residents 16 and older. The release reports results for all participants and, separately, for participants who said they are registered voters. The headline states “residents 16 and older,” not “the public” or “voters.”

Where the objection still wins

Both versions of the objection win something. Against inclusion: once a result is published, it will be quoted without its population label, and a resident-based ranking will sometimes be described as what voters want. Against exclusion: an electorate-only design will leave out people affected by local decisions, and the framework cannot claim to hear from a community it has partly excluded. Breakdowns by group help but require collecting citizenship or age information, which raises privacy and verification problems of its own; self-reported citizenship cannot be verified without identity checks that some participants would reasonably refuse.

Unresolved questions

• Who should set eligibility for an advisory pilot: the public body that receives results, the operator, or participants?
• Should youth participation be treated mainly as civic education, with results reported separately?
• Can citizenship or age be verified for breakdowns without creating sensitive records?
• How should a release be presented so that a resident-based result is not mistaken for the electorate?

Related

• Eligibility
• Youth participation
• Immigration and citizenship
• Does a fingerprint prove eligibility?
• Hard questions