Ever since San Francisco passed their new measure allowing non-citizens (including illegal aliens) to vote in school board elections, the debate over such a concept has flared up yet again. Despite polls showing that only Democrats approve of such an idea in anywhere near majority numbers, there are a lot of Democrats in the Bay area, so you’d think it would be a welcoming environment for them. That’s why it’s rather odd that so few non-citizens have been lining up to register to vote. How few, you ask? Registration opened on July 16th, but as of last Thursday, August 2nd, a grand total of one person had taken advantage of the offer. (CBS San Francisco)

A plan in San Francisco to let people who are not U.S. citizens vote in school board elections isn’t getting off to a great start. The idea was that immigrants — both legal and illegal — should get a say in picking the leaders who affect their kids’ education. However, there is hardly a push to register to vote. July 16 was the first day that non-U.S. citizens could register to vote in school board elections in San Francisco. Since then, only one person has taken advantage of the new law and immigrant right activists said that this has everything to do with the current political climate.

So what’s holding back the tide of eager participants in our democratic process? Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco thinks he knows the answer. And, of course, the answer is… Trump.

“Unfortunately, Donald Trump has waged war on our immigrant communities and we want to be cautious,” said Assemblymember David Chiu (D-S.F.). “On the same day San Franciscans approved giving immigrant parents the right to vote in school board elections, Donald Trump was elected,” he said.

In this case, I’ll have to say that Chiu is at least partially right, and that’s a feature rather than a bug. If San Francisco wants to give the right to vote in local elections to legal immigrants, that’s their business. (Though the poll I linked above shows that even that much of a step is tremendously unpopular with all groups but Democrats.) But when it comes to illegal aliens, they should be afraid to come register and vote. They should be afraid to be around any public officials because they’re not supposed to be here. And if the President and his policies are keeping them at home rather than registering to vote, well… bonus, I guess.

Citizenship is something to be desired and it carries many benefits, with the ability to directly participate in direction of our government being one of the greatest. It’s an incentive to follow the rules and complete the naturalization process. With liberal efforts to continually extend more and more benefits to illegal aliens, that incentive is erased. Expanding the right to vote in this fashion is probably the final frontier in that process.

So basically none of San Fran’s non-citizens are registering to vote. You might think the city’s elected officials might take some sort of a hint from that. Sadly, they appear to be taking away precisely the opposite message.