Potential Non-Resident Voting In Telluride, Colorado

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Although I have much more enjoyable things to do between now and election day in November 2003, the prospect of an initiative to allow non-resident property owners the right to vote at the municipal level in Telluride, Colorado has prompted me to setup a website to flush out and bring to light exactly why such an initiative is not an equitable or fair proposition for the existing citizens of Telluride ... and for that matter, the citizens of the United States of America.

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Although I am personally against this initiative, I am all for the participation of anyone who would like to provide their perspective - regardless of which side of the fence one may stand. John Stuart Mill, in his quintessential writing On Liberty stated:

Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of the subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.

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In my opinion, the proposed allowance for granting non-resident property owners the right to vote at the municipal level in the town of Telluride would have the following negative consequences:

Any principle which espouses the residency of individuals (versus units of property) would be severely undermined. The proposed initiative would allow a home owner the right to vote even if one never stepped foot in Telluride. Such a situation might entail a non resident home owner's voting agenda be dictated solely based on financial interests. Residential interests ought always trump financial interests as they pertain to the process of self-governance.
If an individual's residency is undermined, then it would follow the community as a culture would also be compromised. Issues which individuals vote about would no longer necessarily be considered in light of one's role in the community, but possibly only in regard to financial interests; potentially unraveling of the social fabric which sustains a healthy and viable community.
Within a national and statewide context, such a measure would sanction a political inequality; potentially affording more votes at the municipal level to individuals who own multiple properties located in different municipalities. The accumulation of property would translate into a greater aggregate political "voice" at the municipal level for individuals who owned more than a single home.
Such an initiative arbitrarily imposes a measure of voter qualification extraneous to primary residency; effectively creating a significant quagmire. Why should property owners be granted special voting rights over individuals who commute and work in Telluride? Or, those individuals who simply visit Telluride and spend their tax dollars here?

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