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Frequently Asked
Questions
H.J. Res. 28
The Right to Vote Amendment
July 2004
I have never had a problem voting.
Don’Äôt we already have a right to vote?
Don’Äôt citizens have a right to vote in presidential
elections?
What administrative problems do we have with voting in
the United States and how will a constitutional amendment help?
What Groups of Americans are protected by H.J.
Res. 28?
Will citizens in the territories (Puerto Rico, Virgin
Islands and Guam) be able to vote for president?
What about American Somoa?
Will non-citizens and 16-years be able to vote?
Does the amendment get rid of the Electoral College?
How is this amendment different from the Help America
Vote Act (HAVA)?
Does the amendment guarantee statehood for Washington,
DC?
Is the right to vote a partisan issue?
I have never had a problem voting.
Don’Äôt we already have a right to vote?
American adults living in states typically can vote, but
they do not have a federally protected right to vote that would guarantee that
this right is properly secured. Different states protect the right to vote to
different degrees, and the federal government traditionally only steps into
prevents certain broad abuses such as denying the right to vote to all women,
all people of one race, or all people of a certain age ’Äì an even then the
Voting Rights Act was needed to change that fact that in 1965 a white adult in
Mississippi was ten times more likely to be registered to vote than an African
American adult.
The controversial Florida elections in 2000 showed how
haphazard protection of the individual right to vote can be. As true of nearly
every state that election, counties designed their own ballots, pursued their
own voter education, had their own policies for handling overseas ballots, hire
and train their own pollworkers, chose voting equipment, selected polling place
locations and maintained their own voter registration lists. States have wide
leeway in determining policies on absentee voting, polling hours and funding of
elections. Voters and potential voters are much more likely to cast an effective
vote in some state, some counties and some areas of counties than elsewhere
simply because of differences in funds and standards for elections. These
differences can be even more pronounced in some local elections.
States also currently have the power to explicitly limit
the franchise. As of March 2004, states had chosen to deny nearly five million
American citizens the right to vote because of felony convictions, including
millions who had completely paid their debt to society. Some states denied
certain classes of overseas voters the right to vote.
Don’Äôt citizens have a right to vote in presidential
elections?
Not necessarily. Article II
of the Constitution reads in part: ’ÄúEach state shall appoint, such manner as
the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors’Ķ’Äù In other words,
it is the state legislature and not the citizens of a particular state that
determine which presidential candidate receives that state’Äôs electoral votes.
In the early decades of the country, several state legislatures in fact
appointed electors to the Electoral College rather than hold popular elections
in their state. In the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, five justices declared
that the legislature of Florida has the power to resolve the controversy about
which candidate won the state’Äôs electoral votes by awarding the votes to one
candidate regardless of the final tally of votes.
In addition, it took a Constitutional amendment in 1961 to
enable residents of Washington, D.C. to vote for president. But the millions of
American citizen living in territories like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and
Guam cannot vote for president.
What administrative problems do we have with voting in
the United States and how will a constitutional amendment help?
According to the recent joint study by The Cal Tech and MIT
Voting Project, between four and six million ballots were never counted during
the 2000 presidential election due to poor ballot design, registration
difficulties and voter disenfranchisement on the state level. For example, thousands of ballots were disqualified in
Florida, because voters confused by ballot design mistakenly double-marked their
ballots. Additionally, in states like Missouri and Florida thousands of eligible
voters were unjustifiable removed from voting lists after the states tried to
purge ineligible voters such as ex-felons. Finally, many states continue to use antiquated voting
systems or poorly constructed ’Äútouchscreen’Äù systems that not only may
confuse voters but misrecord votes. Unfortunately since voting is regulated by
the states, there is little that can be done on the Federal level to fix these
electoral irregularities.
As demonstrated, without national standards, states are
free to create their own voting policies and procedures, which in can limit or
restrict one’Äôs ability to vote. Only clear national standards will ensure that
as many votes as possible will count. States would be held accountable for
running fair elections, and the federal government would be responsible for
ensuring that funds were available to meet those high standards.
In the wake of
the 2000 presidential election debacle, for example, having a right to vote in
the Constitution would have made it more likely that a high-quality voting
machine would have been developed at the national level. States and counties
would not have had to buy such a machine, but they would have been required to
buy a machine that was at least as good for avoiding voter error, boosting the
voting rights of people with disabilities and language minorities, providing a
secure audit trail and accommodating potential electoral innovations.
What groups of Americans are
protected by H.J. Res. 28?
H.J. RES. 28 states that all American citizens who are at
least 18 years old have an individual right to vote ’Äúin any public election
held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides. The federal government
would protect this individual right to vote, thus making it more difficult for
states or localities to disenfranchise groups or maintain procedures that make
it unnecessarily difficult for citizens to vote. It would enfranchise all those
who had been stripped of the right to vote due to a felony conviction and would
ensure adults in Washington, D.C. can vote for federal representatives. In
general, it would create more powers for individuals to ensure that their county
and state used procedures that boosted citizens’Äô ability to vote.
Will citizens in the territories (Puerto Rico, Virgin
Islands and Guam) be able to vote for president?
At present, residents of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands
and Guam are all citizens of the U.S. They pay taxes and can be drafted
into the military, but do not vote for president. While this amendment
would not specifically give citizens of the territories the right to vote
automatically, it does open the doorway for them to gain the ability to vote for
president.
What about American Somoa?
Residents of American Somoa are not actually American
citizens, they are nationals. H.J. Res. 28 specifies that only American citizens
would have a right to vote, nationals would not be included.
Will non-citizens and 16-years be able to vote?
Under this amendment the decision about expanding the
franchise to non-citizens and 16 and 17-year-olds would continue to be left to
the states. While many legal immigrants currently reside in the United States
and pay taxes, the fundamental right to vote is reserved for citizens who are at
least 18 years old.
Does the amendment get rid of the Electoral College?
The amendment does not change the role of the Electoral
College in selecting the president. It would ensure that the winner of a
state’Äôs electoral votes would have to earn a majority of the vote rather than
being able to win with less than half of the statewide vote. This provision
could be done either through runoff elections or instant runoff voting, two
majority systems already used in local elections in the United States and in
many other nations.
How is this amendment different from the Help America
Vote Act (HAVA)?
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was a statute passed in
response to the Florida election debacle and the systemic voting irregularities
seen across the country after the 2000 presidential election.
This act does establish some helpful standards, including a provisional
ballot that allows a person to cast a vote if the person believes he or she is
registered by does not appear on the voter register of that precinct.
However, HAVA falls short of establishing real electoral reform.
The act still leaves authority over voting to the states,
which in turn still leave important decisions to counties.
While providing federal funds to states and counties for the first time
ever to run elections, it does not guarantee those funds will continue after
2005. The long-term powers of the new Election Assistance Commission remain
unclear.
Furthermore, the Act does nothing for the millions of
Americans who are permanently disenfranchised in a dozen states because they are
ex-felons. It does not prevent states from wrongly purging voters or engaging in
other activities that limit the franchise.
Fundamentally, it does not grant a right to vote. States still have the
authority to direct electors to vote for a candidate of the legislature’Äôs
choice. A constitutionally protected right to vote is the only means to ensure
that every American will be protected.
Does the amendment guarantee statehood for Washington,
DC?
The Voting Rights Amendment does not specifically call for
statehood for Washington, D.C. and its half millions residents.
However, the amendment does guarantee that all Americans who reside in
our nation’Äôs capital have a constitutionally protected individual right to
vote that would guarantee them representation in Congress.
Is the right to vote a partisan issue?
No. The Supreme Court and many of our leaders from across
the spectrum have affirmed the importance of the right to vote. Some may
mistakenly believe that the amendment takes authority away from the states and
moves it to the federal level, but in fact the amendment only ensures states
meet certain clear standards in how they protect the right to vote. By ensuring
that every American has an individual right to vote that is protected by the
Constitution, this amendment establishes voting as a individual right on par
with the first amendment rights to speech and religion.
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