The right to vote is at the heart of any democratic republic. It is important to note that the US Constitution does not contain an explicit right to vote for all US citizens. Voting rights are primarily a function of state governments. In 1789 only white male property owners could vote and the definition of property owner varied from state to state. By 1856 all property ownership qualifications for white male voters had been eliminated by the states. Since then the expansion of the franchise or the right to vote has been a constant, uphill struggle. We fought a bloody civil war that produced the 15th Amendment that addressed voting rights based on race, but it had little effect after Reconstruction because of the establishment of Jim Crow. It took more than 70 years and a civil rights movement to end Jim Crow voting rights restrictions with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was expanded in 1970 and 1975.
It took almost a century of activism by women that finally led to the 19th amendment to our Constitution allowing them the right to vote. Yet, all black women were not guaranteed the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Poll taxes were not eliminated until 1964 with the 24th Amendment and literacy tests were not banned until 1970. Finally, the 26th Amendment reduced the voting age to 18 in 1971. Yet, there are others that are left out. More than one half million registered voters (and tax payers) in the District of Columbia do not have a voting representative in the US Congress, although DC does have 3 electoral votes in the presidential election (23rd amendment). The ability of convicted felons to vote varies in many ways across the states. The Supreme Court established the one person, one vote principle in a series of cases beginning with Baker v Carr in 1962. Essentially, this means that all votes should be equal; my vote should count no more or less than another person’s vote. The election of the President via the electoral college clearly violates this principle. There are countless other issues as well.
The struggle to expand voting rights and to make voting rights more equal continues today. Many, such as myself, will argue that the struggle has taken several steps backward. In 2019, in a 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling in Lamone v Benisek, it was determined that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable by the courts. This opens the door for even more partisan gerrymandering that directly affects voting outcomes. In a 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling in 2013 in Shelby County v Holder, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was gutted of its pre-clearance requirement. This opened the door for states that have had a notorious history of voter discrimination to enact voter suppression laws without getting a pre-clearance (pre-approval) by the national government.
Several states have since engaged in voter suppression by dramatically reducing the number of voting sites in minority areas and reducing the voting hours. Other examples of voter suppression include making it more difficult for people who move to stay registered; the difficulties faced by college students in registering to vote in their college voting precincts; difficulties faced by Americans who live overseas to register in their home voting precincts; the requirement to have an actual physical street address (especially relevant to native Americans); the elimination of election-day registration; the elimination of pre-registration by 16 and 17 year olds; the reduction in the early voting/absentee voting periods; the restriction of voter registration drives; the requirement of an official government ID as defined by the particular state; requiring the name on one’s driver’s licences to exactly match the name on the voter registration (spelling issues, women who may have maiden or married names listed on one but not the other, Latinx citizens due to the nature of their names); the creation of at-large offices at the local level to dilute the minority vote; the absence of language assistance in key voting districts; the absence of adequately trained poll-workers; reductions in the amount of funding for elections; and voter roll purges. While all states allow some form of mail-in absentee ballot, there are only a few that allow complete mail-in ballots for all citizens. While there is discussion to allow complete mail-in voting across the country in the next presidential election largely due to health concerns with the COVID 19 pandemic, this will be decided on a state by state basis.
Our Founders did not deal with voting rights in the Constitution. They simply allowed the states, who only allowed males to vote and had already defined property rights as a requirement to vote in their constitutions, to establish who has the right to vote and under what conditions one can or cannot vote. This is why voting rights vary so widely from state to state today. Many, such as myself, see this as a fundamental problem. Why should the right to vote vary depending upon the state in which one lives? This means that voting rights are not equal in America. Given that voting is at the very heart of any democratic republic, shouldn’t there be a national standard as to who can vote and under what circumstances one can vote or not? Yes, this would required a constitutional amendment and, no doubt, some would oppose it but...food for thought...please exercise your right to vote in the upcoming presidential election! For more information you can check the websites of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Vote.org, the League of Women Voters, FairVote, and others.
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