The Right to Vote is Not in the Constitution
by Morgan Marietta
Introduction:
(Conversation) The Bill of Rights recognizes the core rights of citizens in a democracy, including freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. It then recognizes several insurance policies against an abusive government that would attempt to limit these liberties: weapons; the privacy of houses and personal information; protections against false criminal prosecution or repressive civil trials; and limits on excessive punishments by the government.
But the framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget – they intentionally left it out. To put it most simply, the founders didn’t trust ordinary citizens to endorse the rights of others.
…
After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed that the right to vote would not be denied on account of race: If some white people could vote, so could similarly qualified nonwhite people. But that still didn’t recognize a right to vote – only the right of equal treatment. Similarly, the 19th Amendment, now more than 100 years old, banned voting discrimination on the basis of sex, but did not recognize an inherent right to vote.
Read more here:
https://theconversation.com/the-right- ... on-144531
caltrek’s comment: Actually, I am not sure I agree with this analysis. The 15th Amendment clearly states:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude-
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The 19th amendment reads
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation
That certainly sounds to me like an implied right to vote. Admittedly, the actual circumstances and details of how that right to vote manifests itself are details that are left to Congress and the states. For example, there is no inherent right to present ballot measures to the public. Perhaps that is what the author is getting at in the conclusion that the “right to vote is not in the Constitution.”
What worries me is that the Supreme Court will use this kind of loophole to in fact deprive of us of the right to vote, arguing that is something that is best left to state legislators. They have already shown a proclivity toward doing this with their partial evisceration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill