Reclaim Democracy
www.reclaimdemocracy.org
September, 2001
A Missing Foundation for Democracy:
The Right to Vote
By Jeff Milchen
As the voting registration drives gear up in anticipation of the November
elections, we'll undoubtedly hear repeated exhortations to "exercise our
right to vote." While well intentioned, these urgings mask a structural
flaw that needs to be exposed: we have no right to vote!
It's true that the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments to our Constitution refer
to a right to vote in the course of prohibiting voting discrimination based on
one's race, sex, or (adult) age, but those protections are hollow because
governments may disenfranchise (strip of voting privileges) all citizens, so
long as it is done without bias.
While numerous electoral reforms have been debated since the 2000
presidential election debacle, we should first establish a long-neglected
foundation of democracy -- one that already exists in at least 135 nations -- by
amending our Constitution to establish an affirmative right to vote and to have
our votes count equally. By securing a right to vote as an inherent right of
citizenship, numerous other crucial reforms will be more achievable.
For example, a right to vote would have armed Florida residents to fight
victimization by state officials who purged legally registered citizens (most of
them Black and/or Hispanic) from the voter rolls. Presently any state has the
power to refuse or ignore our votes in presidential elections, and as Florida's
legislature asserted in 2000, any state legislature may simply choose electors
with no voter input whatsoever.
A right to vote would enable citizens to challenge anti-democratic structures
that routinely prevent citizens in several states from enjoying a choice other
than Democrats or Republicans. For example, Georgia has institutionalized
two-party dominance with no outside competition by requiring independent or
"third party" candidates for U.S. Representative to gather signatures
from five percent of registered voters, a feat that no person has accomplished
in nearly 40 years.
While we lack an affirmative right to vote, state officials can and do
permanently disenfranchise a citizen for a past felony, even after a sentence is
served. Offenses that are misdemeanors in some states are used to deny voting
rights in others. Virginia, for instance, strips citizens of voting privileges
for life simply for possessing a certain quantity of marijuana. Regardless of
one's position on drug offenses, we should recognize that blocking ex-offenders
from political participation undermines the process of re-integrating persons
into society as productive, engaged citizens.
Then there's the perennial case of Washington D.C. residents, who lack voting
representation in Congress entirely. Just months before the Supreme Court
decided the 2000 election in Bush v. Gore, a majority of the justices ruled that
the nearly 600,000 residents of Washington D.C. have no legal recourse for their
lack of representation. In that case, Alexander v. Mineta, the Court majority
stated explicitly that our Constitution "does not protect the right of all
citizens to vote, but rather the right of all qualified citizens to vote."
Though Washington D.C. residents outnumber those of some states and pay taxes
like the rest of us, they have no say in the federal laws under which they must
live. If that were changed, the capital would be the only U.S. Senate district
with a black majority, but bills to right this situation are held hostage by
partisan politics.
Those who think the Supreme Court could rectify such injustice through a more
generous interpretation of our Constitution might wait a long time. In Bush v.
Gore the majority reinforced the idea that "the individual citizen has no
federal constitutional right to vote..." Although their statement refers to
electoral votes for the presidency, it reinforces the reality that voting is a
privilege granted at the discretion of those in power.
Though some may consider the legal reasoning in that decision dubious, the
Supreme Court is not to blame when it comes to voting rights; the justices have
interpreted our Constitution correctly. It is the job of citizens to demand an
amendment that will guarantee what American University law professor and Right
to Vote Amendment advocate Jamin Raskin calls "the right of the people to
vote and, therefore, to govern."
While most Americans assume universal suffrage to be a struggle already won,
a Constitutional right to vote is the next vital step toward realizing the goal
of one person, one vote.
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