3 ms·

And remember, international students can't vote. That includes a lot of the grad students.

• RuggedPineapple 3y ago
  Are you sure about that? Only federal offices have a baked in requirement that voters be citizens. On the municipal level many west coast cities have opened up local elections to all residents regardless of citizenship. I don't know about Berkeley specifically (its been close to 20 years since I went to school there) but its neighbors Oakland[1] and SF[2] both have opened at least some local elections to non-citizen residents. Like I said, I don't know the answer and while I made a token effort to check, Berkeley city code actually seems somewhat difficult to find from a first party source. Just want to make sure this wasn't an off the cuff remark. [1]: https://ballotpedia.org/Oakland,_California,_Measure_S,_Noncitizen_Residents_Voting_Measure_(November_2022) https://ballotpedia.org/Oakland,_California,_Measure_S,_Nonc... [2]: https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Non-Citizen_Voting_in_School_Board_Elections_Amendment,_Proposition_N_(November_2016) https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Non-Citiz...
  • whimsicalism 3y ago
    Almost all of those electoral expansions to non-citizens that I am aware of are limited just to school board elections.
• AndyMcConachie 3y ago
  Also, grad student housing is in Albany, right on the border with Berkeley. So anyone living there doesn't actually live in Berkeley.
  • stephencanon 3y ago
    Most grad students live in apartments rented from private landlords, not university housing.
• astrange 3y ago
  They can still email the city council though.