Description:This new book examines the actual politics of voting in the United States and shows how voting rights can empower minority groups. It is not widely known that non-citizens currently vote in local elections in Maryland and in Chicago, nor that over the last decade campaigns to expand the franchise the non-citizens have been launched in at least a dozen other jurisdictions from coast to coast. These practices have their roots in another little known fact: for most of the country's history from the founding until the 1920s - non-citizens voted in 22 states' local, state and even federal elections and also held public office such as alderman, coroner and school board member. This book presents arguments for and against non-citizen voting rights and examines contemporary political organisations and actors, who fought for and against campaigns to reinstate non-citizen voting, that are currently underway and, and other campaigns that failed.