alt Hacker NewsSomebody who spends 3-4 years in a place has an immense interest in how it's governed. Their view is 100% as valid as yours, and they should have equal voice, if we are going to judge people based on how long they live somewhere.
I live in a college town. Why shouldn't student voices be represented, when they are a huge chunk of our community?
Maybe I'm too US focused, and have been accused of that a lot recently, but your views are fundamentally at odds with basic democracy as I see it as a US citizen.
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KellyCriterion • yesterday at 4:43 PM
Because people do not vote "for local interests" but for "the interests they are carrying with them according to their believes", which are usually not on par with the interestes of the long-term-resident local community.
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There's a massive difference between "will be in a place for 3-4 years maximum, then leaving" vs "has been in a place for 3-4 years but is planning on staying permanently." In the former case their interests are going to be short-term and might not align with long-term residences. Per your example, university students would vote against allocating funds toward schools or playgrounds, because they know they're not going to be raising a family there. Or more globally, you have the population of "digital nomads" who are working in Vietnam/Thailand for a few years before they come back to the US.
It's pretty debatable if these temporary residents should have the same voting rights as permanent residents, since their interests are going to be at odds with long-term residents. I would not be happy if schools got defunded because university students who are only going to be there for a few years wanted to lower alcohol taxes.
Permanent residency/citizenship being a prerequisite for voting is used as a (very imperfect) screening for this.