(Los Angeles-AP) -- A UCLA study says California's constitution should be amended so the state's four and a-half million non-citizen adults can vote in local elections.
They comprise 28 percent of the population.
Study author Joaquin Avila says cities wouldn't be ordered to let non-citizens vote, but would have the choice to do so.
In fact, Washington DC's Brookings Institution says some cities and school boards in Illinois, Maryland and New York already allow it. It was a common practice until subdued by a post-World War II immigration backlash.
The report, by the school's Chicano Studies Research Center, makes no distinction between legal and illegal aliens. It comes days after the state repealed a law that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses.
The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington says the move would essentially sanction illegal immigration.
On the Net:
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/csrc/
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
