More madness in New York City: according to a report in this weekend’s New York Sun a draft of a resolution being considered by the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission includes the suggestion that NYC’s green-card holders should be given the vote in elections for City Council, mayor and other offices.

This is nonsense. If a resident wants to vote he or she should make the effort to become a citizen. Not to insist on this is to make a mockery of both democracy and citizenship. It could also, incredibly, be the thin end of an even larger wedge. The Sun quotes Gouri Sadhwani, the director of something known as the New York Civic Participation Project (a joint venture between labor and immigrants’ groups) as saying that the vote should be extended to illegal, as well as legal, immigrants. She doesn’t think “we should draw distinctions between people who have green cards and people who don’t.”

Well, that’s right in one way – and, probably, one way only – neither should have the vote.