--certainly don't want their names in one more government computer. When someone that I'm trying to register to vote says "We don't live here--we're just cleaning it for them," I can take a hind.

For the most part, this was frontier states which promised the right to vote for all males, citizens or not, and sometimes females, as a way to attract settlers and economic development.

Also, in some municipalities today, non-citizens do vote.

It makes a significant amount of sense because the "consent of the governed" doesn't seem to be limited to citizens and jndeed, in many ways, non-citizens (and felons) are HIGHLY governed and thus the case for rights of representation is arguably stronger than with regular citizens.

I do understand that citizenship entails duties and responsibilities and voting can be seen as a tradeoff for those duties. I'm not looking for a debate on this, just want to make a point of information that it hasn't been obvious to past states that only citizens should vote, and not obvious to every municipality in our country today, some of whom do have legal noncitizen voting.

Nor does everyone have to register to vote ahead of.time or at the polls. North Dakota has no voter registration requirement today. (They have some ID required however)