THEY LEFT THEIR HEADS IN SAN FRANCISCO – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:   San Francisco is truly vying for the title of America's worst-run major city.  Look at this fiasco.  From Fox: 

San Francisco reportedly spent $310,000 on a new registration system aimed at getting non-citizens to cast votes in school board elections.

The program resulted in 49 new voters, which turned out to cost the city $6,326 each, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The paper called the effort “pretty much a bust the first time out.”

Local officials suggest residents who might otherwise consider registering are worried the Trump administration would learn their identities.

The voters are only able to vote in a school board race. John Arntz, the city elections chief,  In San Francisco, noncitizens who opt to vote will be listed on a separate roster from citizens and will get a ballot with just the school board contest, city elections chief John Arntz said.

Robin Hvidston, the executive director of We the People Rising, group that calls for tougher immigration enforcement, told The Los Angeles Times that the program could ultimately backfire with those who take a moderate stance on immigration.

San Francisco is not the first place with such a measure. In Maryland, where an estimated 15 percent of residents are foreign-born, at least six cities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

In Massachusetts, the cities of Amherst, Cambridge, Newton and Brookline have advanced laws to allow noncitizen voting, but they cannot implement them because they need the approval of state lawmakers, who have not acted, said Ron Hayduk, an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University who studies noncitizen voting laws.

COMMENT:  I still believe that voting should be a privilege requiring citizenship.  It should be the goal of legal immigrants to become citizens in order to vote.  As for illegal residents, I would allow them to vote in local, non-federal elections if they are in a legitimate program leading to legal citizenship, but I don't know if those even exist.

October 29, 2018