Re: “Gubernatorial candidates oppose letting non-citizens vote” (Aug. 22):

Alan Caron: “We shouldn’t short-circuit the process by giving citizenship rights … .”

Terry Hayes: “Voting is a fundamental right of citizenship and residency.”

Janet Mills: “Voting … is a fundamental right that should be reserved for American citizens.”

Shawn Moody: “Voting is a sacred right reserved for American citizens.”

Really?

The long, costly path to citizenship, especially asylum seekers waiting five years for interviews, is unacceptable but not center in this argument.

White men prohibited women’s right to vote until 1920, allowed only landowners or taxpayers to vote and barred Jews from voting in 1737.

Crispus Attucks, a slave with no voting rights, was the first Colonial soldier to die for American independence, in the 1770 Boston Massacre. In 1776, Catholics, Jews and Quakers were barred from voting, though other white men voted. Although some women had been allowed to vote in Colonial America, by 1790 only women in New Jersey had that right.

The 1790 Naturalization Act permitted only free white persons to become citizens. Other ethnic groups were excluded and couldn’t vote.

In 1807, New Jersey mandated that “no person shall vote in any state or county election … unless such person be a free, white male citizen.”

In 1819, Maine’s original constitution declared that Native Americans who did not pay taxes could not vote.

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled (Dred Scott v. Sandford) that blacks, free or slave, couldn’t be U.S. citizens.

In 1867, Congress allowed black men to vote – but only in Colorado and the other Western territories.

There’s more, but my words are limited. However, all candidates should learn U.S. history. If these are the rules you want to defend, speak up.

I want a candidate who’s willing to say, “This is wrong!” Have a backbone – defend residents’ right to vote locally. It’s the moral thing to do.

Rosemarie De Angelis

South Portland

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