green card

I am permanent resident alien of the USA, and my green card expires in December. Over the past year I debated whether I should just get a new green card or apply for US citizenship. As a permanent resident, I was under the impression that the only differences that might affect me between my status and that of a citizen was that I was not eligible to vote and that if I would leave to live in another country for more than 2 years, I would lose my status. The voting thing is huge to me, because I want to be able to vote. But I have hangups with becoming a US citizen. For one thing, having to pledge allegiance to the flag would be hard to swallow. It's really an identity issue. I grew up in Canada and moved to the US when I was 18. I have been here for 10 years, and I clearly like living in this country enough to keep living here. I love Americans individually. I know lots and lots of wonderful people in the USA, who I deeply respect and love, and many of whom have the same values as I do. However, I have to say, to take on the identity of "American" would be very difficult for me. Americans as a whole group, frankly, have a less than ideal reputation in much of the world, and that reputation is only getting worse. For me to actually claim that identity would be really hard. I realize that living in this country and taking advantage of the positives of the USA isn't necessarily better, but there is so much that this country has done that I don't want to attach my name to. A positive of becoming a US Citizen is that Canada would never rescind my Canadian citizenship, but the US would only recognize me as a US citizen, which is really annoying. At this point, I can't really say for sure whether I will live in the US forever, or if I will move back to Canada someday or even to another country.

So anyway, I decided to continue with my restriction to not be able to vote by not becoming a citizen at this time, and renew my green card (as frustrating as it is to have no power in the outcome of elections other than influencing others' votes). In that process, I recently discovered that permanent residents can actually vote in certain local and state elections!!! Good to know after 10 years!!!!! I was quite excited to discover this, although I found out too late to register for today's election. HOWEVER, in doing some research today to find out which elections I could potentially vote in, I discovered that the State of Washington doesn't allow permanent residents to vote AT ALL. How disappointing. I was surprised. I am very curious to know which states do allow green card holders to vote, but I couldn't find that in my research this afternoon.