Kingdom Voting (Part 4): Stakeholders and Suffrage

The second core principle related to suffrage is that people should not make decisions about things that have no bearing on their lives. Most Americans agree with this, but differ over how to implement it. For instance, most would agree that a person living in Miami should not decide whether to install a stoplight in San Francisco. They may have valid opinions about the decision, but a stoplight in San Francisco affects life for people who live in San Francisco, not people who live in Miami.

In early practice, this meant that only property owners were able to vote. The founders thought the people paying the taxes should be the ones to decide how much they would pay and how those funds would be used. This implicitly suggested that no one without property would be affected by the decisions made.

However, the same principles behind “no taxation without representation” applied equally well beyond taxes. Popular sentiment suggested that all people impacted by decisions should have a stake in making them. Thus, suffrage quickly expanded to include those who did not own property, and more Americans could participate in their government.

In modern practice, this same principle means that only American citizens should vote in American elections. Many immigrants love the United States and become eligible to vote as naturalized citizens. However, a few hostile extremists would gladly destroy it from within if given the chance. Longstanding concerns about election integrity, rampant illegal immigration at the southern border, the sweeping shift to Shariah law throughout Western Europe, and the recent discovery of Somali immigrant fraud in Minnesota give voters plenty of reasons to be wary of non-citizens trying to vote.

While it is currently illegal for non-citizens to vote, lawmakers are working to ensure that remains the case in future elections. Many states have adopted voter identification laws to cut back on the potential for fraud, and the Senate is currently debating the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Opponents suggest that these measures can disenfranchise legitimate voters, and the debate between both sides continues.

From a biblical perspective, who should be allowed to vote? Perhaps it is better to question how to make your vote for kingdom principles more effective when each vote makes up a much smaller sliver of the electorate than was previously the case. One strategy is to seek agreement with other like-minded voters. This may involve some discussion to determine the candidates and policies that advance kingdom interests most effectively. However, working together intentionally keeps you from unknowingly sabotaging one another’s efforts.