The New York City Council voted Thursday evening to allow legal resident foreigners living in the city to cast ballots in local elections, a move that will enfranchise more than 800,000 New Yorkers, the New York Times reports.
“People who are looking to get elected to office will now have to spend the same amount of time in the communities affected by this legislation as they do in upper-class neighborhoods,” Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said in an interview.
New York becomes the largest city in the United States to provide the right to vote to non-citizen residents. Some towns in Maryland and Vermont allow foreign residents to vote in local elections, and San Francisco allows foreign residents to vote in school board elections.
With the law taking effect one year after its passage, the first elections in which the newly-enfranchised voters can cast a ballot will be in 2023. The law, however, will have to survive expected court challenges.