Framing – a key to public support for non-citizen suffrage?

Noncitizen suffrage is supposed to be “the latest frontier of enfranchisement” (Altmann, 2020). In many countries, the electoral right on the national level is still strongly intertwined with citizenship. In Germany it is the same picture, one needs German citizenship for being allowed to vote in important elections, like federal and state elections. To some extent, it is arguable whether the public opinion can be a basis for expanding voting rights because in the past often political elites made the decision about granting these rights. However, political regimes also tend to favour the extension of rights which have a strong basis within the society. The question I would like to raise is, if - depending on the framing of political communication - there is support among the public opinion in favour of granting electoral rights to noncitizen residents. For this, I will apply an experiment with different ways of framing, e. g. with a focus on rights, on adapting the status quo and both framings mixed, to see which is more convincing to get support within the public. The questions will be randomly asked to participants of the DeZIM.panel (approximately 3.300 observations), an online access panel of German residents, with the goal of catching the opinions in an experimental way to not only receive a glimpse of general support or opposition, but also to what extent framing makes a difference in political communication about noncitizens’ electoral rights.