Non-Citizen Voting Fails in Portland, But Will Be Back

8/16/18, Maine First Media Staff Report,

To the shock of most Maine political pundits, the Portland City Council voted unanimously to delay a proposal gifting voting rights to the city’s non-citizen population.

After hours of public testimony, bill sponsor, Muslim-immigrant City Councilor, Pious Ali knew he didn’t have the votes to pass the proposal in its current form.

Councilor Ali joined with the rest of the Council in voting to move the unconstitutional proposal to the Legislative Committee for study and review.

Councilor Ali says he expects the proposal to be delayed for at least a year. The original plan by the open-borders Councilor was to have his proposal — also supported by radical Leftist Portland Mayor, Ethan Strimling — pass in the Council and go on the November ballot.

However, there were a few factors causing the Council to push the pause button.

First, an outcry from Mainers demanding that voting is only for citizens. Conservative-populist non-profit, Maine First Project spearheaded efforts mobilizing supporters to contact Portland City Councilors ahead of Monday’s vote and urge opposition to the illegal proposal. This may have led Councilors to believe their voting rights scheme was not in the best interest of their re-election plans.

Write-in gubernatorial candidate — and the only candidate in the gubernatorial contest who was a Republican the last time Maine voters participated in a general election — Aaron Chadbourne has also been active on social media fighting against non-citizen voting. As you can see in the video below, Chadbourne was regularly talking to Portland residents who were deadset against non-citizen voting.

Chadbourne also points out many of the people he spoke with had no idea unhinged-Democrat Mayor Strimling was attempting such a stunt. Which, of course, explains why Strimling and Ali waited until the dog days of Summer to introduce their open-borders proposal.

Reason number two for the surprise decision by the Council was legal concerns. The LePage administration let it be known before the vote they would challenge the proposal on constitutional grounds.

And the third reason will hit home to the Leftist base. It’s also likely the biggest facotr in the delay. Groups like the ACLU of Maine warned that the proposal could hold unintended consequences of deportation of illegal aliens.

As Chadbourne explains in the video at the top of the story, in order to allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections, their information would have to be stored in a separate list of people who are allowed to vote on the municipal ballots but not vote on state or federal ballots.

The open-borders crowd feared the list could get into the hands of ICE and cause deportations and immigration status challenges.

It should not come as a surprise that one of the chief concerns of the Leftist Portland City Council wasn’t protecting the voting rights of legal Maine citizens — but instead safeguarding the criminal aliens the city harbors.

And perhaps most importantly, this is evidence the Council is planning on illegals voting! Otherwise, there would be no risk of them being on the voter rolls.

The ACLU suggests several measures that will protect against ICE acquiring the non-citizen voting list, all of which come at great cost to Maine workers.

And while the decision to table the proposal is a big win for Mainers, the celebration needs to be short-lived. This WILL be back. The Legislative Committee will tinker with the scheme and spare no expense to make sure illegals aliens are protected. Expect to see yet another push for non-citizens voting ahead of the 2020 election, and perhaps even in 2019 when Leftist will hope a low, odd-year turnout will help secure passage.

Remember, the last time Maine voters weighed in on voting rights for non-citizens, the measure failed. But the next time it will be only Portland residents voting.

And there’s no question Portland is a starting point, not a finish line. Maine First Media spoke with city officials in some of Maine’s other large cities, who — off the record — told us they expect the Marxist Pedophile Authority and the rest of the open-borders crowd to bring the non-citizen voting rights fight to their municipalities.

That is why Chadbourne is calling for a Constitutional Amendment specifically stating non-citizens are not eligible to vote. The Harvard grad has called on Governor Paul LePage to introduce the bill in an emergency session of the Maine Legislature. He hopes the legislature would pass it and move it on to voters — however, securing a two-thirds vote from both Houses is a tall order, to say the least.

But it’s a political battle worth having. The majority of Mainers strongly believe voting is for legal Maine citizens only. If the Constitutional Amendment makes it to the voters, expect millions of dollars in out-of-state dark money to come in and spread lies about the issue. But it would still have a great chance of passing. And if legislators vote against a Constitutional Amendment protecting voting rights for legal Maine citizens — then they should have to explain that vote to their constituents.

Maine First Media will continue to cover this story as it develops.

Our own James Mosher was at the council meeting as he outlines in this week’s Mosher Minutes. You can watch his testimony in the video below.