Should foreign residents be eligible to vote?

An alien resident might not have the necessary knowledge

Question: Should foreign residents be eligible to vote?
Position‹2 of 4›: No, foreign residents should not be able to vote
Argument‹2 of 2: An alien resident might not have the necessary knowledge

An alient resident might not know enough of country language, customs, legislative system to cast a vote.

The argument

Alien that resides in a country might not know enough of the country or might not show enough willigness to integrate. Some foreign tend to live in a close communities with little exposure to exteranl society. The right to vote cannot be given to person just arrived in the country

Premises

[P1]A foreign resident may lack sufficient knowledge of the country or willingness to integrate. [P2] Some live in close communities with little exposure to wider society. [P3] The right to vote should not be granted to someone newly arrived without that knowledge. [C] Therefore, because an alien resident might lack the necessary knowledge, foreign residents should not be able to vote.

Counter-arguments

The right to vote is automatically given to all adults nationals, except for very limited exceptions (major criminals) without any check of their kmnowledge of the political environment. So the argument of not being integrated can not stand. Also to mitigate the objection the law might impose limits to foreing people eligiblity to vote: some swiss cantons (like Neuchatel) gives right to vote only to permanent residents: this status can be obtained only after 5 years of residence and with some background checks by Immigration Office.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The counter-argument on record makes the decisive objection: citizens are enfranchised at adulthood with no test of their knowledge of the political system, so a knowledge requirement applied only to foreign residents is not a standard the electorate as a whole is held to. Historically, tests of this kind have been used to exclude rather than to inform. [Rejecting P2] Living within a close community is asserted of 'some' and then treated as characteristic. It is also not a measure of political knowledge, and no evidence connects residential pattern to understanding of local issues. [Rejecting P3] The premise assumes the proposal concerns people who have just arrived, which none of the positions in this debate propose. The counter points to the arrangement actually in use in cantons such as Neuchâtel, where the vote is extended only to permanent residents — a status reached after several years of residence and administrative checks — which meets the objection without excluding foreign residents as a class. [Rejecting C] The conclusion also does not follow from a premise about what someone 'might' lack. That some members of a group may be poorly informed is true of every group, and would justify excluding any of them on the same reasoning.