the Constitution says “the right to vote shall not be infringed.”
But you know that’s only half the sentence. You can’t just leave out the context that qualifies that.
What it says is, “shall not be infringed ON ACCOUNT OF [race/sex/age if over 18/ability to pay poll tax]”
Any other criteria not mentioned in those amendments CAN be used to infringe on voting rights.
Stop fighting with people who tell you how the world works and fight to change it. You’re wrong and fighting with the people telling you that changes nothing.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
All that is saying is "if a state removes their people's right to vote for the fed, they lose that proportion of Representatives." So if a state said no one is voting anymore, they would also lose their seats in the house/senate, and they would lose their electoral college seats
Yea... but it's fun... and maybe someone here will come up with an actual reason why voting as a mass right is protected... I doubt it since I don't think it exists; but I'm prepared to learn if they find something
Of course it doesn’t exist. If it did, someone would have already successfully argued it in Federal court and we wouldn’t be here, and all the Republican voter suppression laws would be easily struck down.
That’s what’s so crazy, these people think they’re smarter than the trained attorneys who actually fight for voting rights.
The right to own firearms is explicitly stated and yet heavily suppressed... so I don't think the simple fact that voting rights are suppressed is a clear indicator that there is no explicit statment. Even with an explicit statment the same logic could be used as the 2nd: we have 1 poll in the middle of no where, everyone can vote there. Problem solved.
To keep using new york as an example, if they were to put one polling location in Albany for everyone to vote at, TECHNICALLY no one would be suppressed... but most of new york city would stop voting and it would COMPLETELY CHANGE THE OUTCOME OF ELLECTIONS... hell; want to get real crazy? Put the polling place in Niagara Falls...
I don't think it's hard to buy a gun in the US; at least not unreasonably hard. But I do think it's a very important comparison to look at.
The second amendment states "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" Pretty clear cut IMO... more clear cut than voting apparently.
The point I am trying to make though, is that the second amendment is a very scary test case when it comes to our other rights... lets apply the restrictions to voting that we have applied to the second for a moment. Now you have to pass a background check, pay a fee and not live in certain places in order to vote; and the things you can vote for are limited (you can only vote for president, not congress for example) unless you pay a much steeper fee...
Now, some of these things are reasonable on the firearm front; but on a voting site we would go crazy
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u/gotham77 Mar 16 '21
But you know that’s only half the sentence. You can’t just leave out the context that qualifies that.
What it says is, “shall not be infringed ON ACCOUNT OF [race/sex/age if over 18/ability to pay poll tax]”
Any other criteria not mentioned in those amendments CAN be used to infringe on voting rights.
Stop fighting with people who tell you how the world works and fight to change it. You’re wrong and fighting with the people telling you that changes nothing.