Today is New York City’s Democratic and Republican mayoral primary elections. This will be the first election in the city’s history that will use so-called ‘rank choice voting’ or ‘instant runoff voting.’ This is the latest scheme by progressive activists to encourage more participation in the voting process.

Advocates say this scheme is more ‘democratic’ because it eliminates the possibility of candidates winning an election with less than fifty percent of the vote. They also claim rank choice voting discourages negative campaigning since candidates are also competing for second-choice votes from their opponents’ supporters. And third, which is obvious, rank choice voting provides more choice for voters since they can choose and rank more than one candidate.

Seems reasonable and simple enough, right? But not so fast. It seems many voters in New York City want the voting process to remain the same and to adhere to the age-old K.I.S.S. principle: Keep It Simple Stupid!

“I just went with first and second, that’s all right, kind of ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,’” she said. “Definitely not the people who I’m against, but putting in some kind of order the people who sounded OK.”

Others were outright skeptical or confused.

“I don’t know which vote they are going to take — are they going to take my first pick or second pick?” asked Reginald Thomas, 58, on Monday in Harlem. “How are they going to figure that out?”

Yvette Chavis, a marketing consultant, had just one question: Why? “I don’t understand why we need it, first and foremost,” she said Monday in Harlem. “Why is it better than what we had in the past?”

Another scheme progressive advocates are using to encourage more participation in the voting process is the allowance of non-citizens — with green cards — to vote in our elections. I have been alerting RedState readers since February, May, and September of 2020 on this growing nationwide movement.

Advocates tried to include non-citizen voting in this year’s New York City mayoral primaries but it fell short.

In January 2020, Councilmember Ydanis Rodríguez introduced Int. 1867 that, if passed, would allow legal permanent residents or those authorized to work in the United States to vote exclusively in primary, special, general, and runoff elections for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, city council member, and borough president. The bill does not include voting at the state level, much less the national level. Advocates argue that doing so is not unprecedented for New York City, which for decades allowed noncitizens to vote in school board elections, according to a report from CUNY City College’s Colin Powell School..The New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) estimates that 589,000 New York immigrants are legal permanent residents who are eligible for naturalization and would be impacted by the bill’s passage.

The City of Chicago is looking to change its school board from an appointed board to a board elected by the voters. Along with this pivotal change, advocates are also pushing for ‘non-citizen residents’ having the right to vote in these elections as well.

The inclusion of non-citizen voters and candidates in Chicago’s school board elections remains one of the biggest issues that, on the surface, appears to have nearly universal support. Current Board of Education President Miguel del Valle, who said he supports an elected board, has ripped this bill for not guaranteeing non-citizen residents’ voting rights because he worries the issue might fall through the cracks in later legislation. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called it “unfathomable” that school board elections could exclude undocumented parents. The progressive backers of the bill said they agree non-citizens should be able to vote, and a bill has already been introduced to open all school board elections in Illinois to any voters over 18.

The progressives are just brazen now in their schemes to foster a permanent voting majority for the Democrats. They are even floating the idea of non-citizens voting in elections in our nation’s capital!

A proposed bill would allow Green Card holders living in D.C. to vote in future local elections. Introduced by Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau of Ward 1, the Local Resident Voting Rights Act of 2021 would redefine a 1955 definition of “qualified elector” to include Green Card holders, according to a press release distributed by Nadeau’s office. The bill would allow for these immigrants to vote for mayor, D.C. Council, State Board of Education, Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and attorney general.

Non-citizen voting is not just the latest pet cause for liberals in big cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C., it’s also gaining traction in smaller states like Vermont:

At issue are a pair of city charter changes, in Winooski and Montpelier, that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections..On the charter changes, Scott said the proposal allowing for a town by town approach to non-citizen voting “creates inconsistency in election policy, as well as separate and unequal classes of residents potentially eligible to vote on local issues.”

This nation is in a vulnerable place right now when it comes to the integrity of our elections. The Democrats are proposing a literal federal takeover of the election process with their misnamed ‘For the People Act’ or HR 1. Couple this unconstitutional legislation with non-citizen voting and you have a recipe for disaster, not only for our electoral process, but also for the future of our nation. We must stay ever vigilant, informed, and ready to fight for fair and honest elections and Americans for Citizen Voting is helping to lead that charge.