Surprised?
The U.S. has waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified, at least
in rhetoric, by the claim that people deserve the right to vote for
their leaders. Most of us assume that the right to vote has long been
enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Not according to the Supreme
Court. In Bush v. Gore (2000), the Court ruled that “[t]he individual
citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the
President of the United States.”..
The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy. Yet most Americans
do not realize that we do not have a constitutionally protected right
to vote. While there are amendments to the U.S. Constitution that
prohibit discrimination based on race (15th), sex (19th) and age (26th),
no affirmative right to vote exists...
Two Congressmen from Minnesota and Wisconsin want to change that:
Two members of the House of Representatives, Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.,
and Representative Keith Ellison, D-Minn., announced on May 13 that
they would introduce an amendment to the federal Constitution
guaranteeing the right to vote in America. Here is their proposed amendment:
SECTION
1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age,
shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in
the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.
SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.
There's more
here.
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