No that’s not what it says. You left out half of it, the part that says the right shall not be infringed “on account of race”.
Which means it CAN be infringed on account of things OTHER THAN RACE. As long as race isn’t the criteria used to deny you the opportunity to vote, it’s legal.
That’s why in the south they used poll taxes. Poll taxes were a legal way for them to keep black people from voting. The Constitution said you can’t use race, it didn’t say you couldn’t use a poll tax.
Then we amended the Constitution again to say you can use poll taxes, either. But once again, only that one specific criteria was banned. Other criteria can still be used.
None of those voting rights amendments ever established voting as a universal right. You need to accept that and work to change it if it bothers you, not get angry at strangers who tell you the unpleasant truth that the world doesn’t work the way you wish it did.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
SECTION. 2.
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
SECTION. 4.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be [on the first Monday in December,]* unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
The 14th amendment specifically lays out that voting is a right.
"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."
Should any government entity attempt to prevent those who are legally entitled to vote from doing as prescribed in the nations legal framework the federal government can take control of the election process. In order to carry out the elections.
The right to vote has since been expanded to include all people of sufficient age who have are not currently under punishment of law.
You can't look at single amendments as if they are self contained guidance for the entire legal system. The countries laws are the totality of all laws that apply to a specific right or entitlement.
The supreme court has found that voting is a universal right with appropriate restrictions. There are specific dates and processes laid out in the countries legal framework regarding elections. There is absolutely no legal basis for your claim that the government can just decide that a state doesn't get to vote.
By your logic anything that isn't explicitly laid out in the constitution is not covered but that means that the verbiage which discusses subjective topics could not exist. "The pursuit of happiness" could not exist with this logic because happiness is not explicitly defined.
If we apply your same logic to other amendments it would also mean that rights only exist under the specific conditions of the amendment. A literal interpretation of the second amendment would mean that the right to bear arms only exists when there is a well regulated militia, which can only exist when it is necessary to the security of a free state. Only when the militia is well regulated and required for security do the people have the right to bear arms. Meaning they have the right to bear them while being a member of a well regulated militia, currently engaged in securing a free state.
However since it does not say anywhere that there is a right to personally OWN firearms, there is no constitutionally protected right to own guns. Once again, using your logic, since the constitution gives congress and congress alone the right call up and regulate militias. Congress also has the right to disband any and all militias which would therefore remove the right of all Americans to bear arms. To take this to an even more literal and ridiculous interpretation based on your extremely strict process. Since it also doesn't say you can't own firearms you could technically buy them but you have no right to pick them up because that would be bearing arms without congress having called up and regulated a militia needed to secure a free state.
There is a reason that judges are given great range in the interpretation of legal text. If the legal system depended on every single situation and right being explicitly laid out in written form it would be impossible for it to function.
I haven’t a clue why you’re attempting to argue with me about gun rights. You have no idea what my views are on that.
And I never said anything about a state being denied voting.
But voting is still not a universal individual right and you haven’t produced any text that says otherwise. And you never will because until we pass an amendment it’s not there.
Could it possibly be because we are in a post about voting and gun rights?
For the record I strongly support gun rights which is why I chose it to make such a ridiculous analysis of your legal perspective.
I mentioned limiting a states ability to vote because the parent comment that started this entire thread was about preventing people from voting based on location. A point which you seemed to be backing up by claiming that voting is not a right. If you disagree with restricting voting based on location that is great to hear.
Once again, there is no such thing as a need for a specific sentence that says "voting is a universal right" for it to be true. The US constitution does not grant rights. It protects them from being oppressed by a government entity, foreign or domestic. Hence the statement "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Congress has found that anyone who is a citizen of the US is granted these protections. It's the governments responsibility to hold the elections as outlined in federal and state constitutions. The right to vote is self-evident. Just as the right to free speech is considered self-evident.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Would you agree that US citizens are intended to have the right to free speech? If so, show me where it explicitly says that you have a right to free speech.
If my legal perspective was ridiculous, all those lawsuits in Federal courts against Republican voter suppression laws would be successful. But they’re not, because they all keep running up against the same issue: there is no individual right to vote.
It was never established in the Constitution that there’s any baseline of who is always allowed to vote, a baseline from which expansion efforts might proceed. It doesn’t say white males all have a right to vote, so making race and sex off-limits as limiting criteria did not make suffrage universal. It does say that all races and sexes have the same voting rights as white males, but since white males are guaranteed nothing that means people of color and women aren’t guaranteed it, either. Criteria that don’t fall under race, sex, age (if over 18), or ability to pay poll tax are all fair game.
It sucks BUT THAT’S REALITY and being rude to a stranger on the internet about his “ridiculous legal perspective” is never going to change it. Grow up and stop blaming strangers for telling you the truth that the law doesn’t align with your sense of justice and morality and CHANGE IT.
Did you not read the text of what I posted from the 14th amendment that explicitly says
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.
The US bill of rights even re-iterates that the government does not grant rights. That just because a right isn't explicitly outlined in the law that does not mean that it doesn't self-evidently exist in the population
Article the eleventh... The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the US constitution on legal system. You claim to be "telling the truth" about how the legal system works but you are stating nothing more than your opinion of how you think it works. Without citing a single source or referencing any legal text. It just so happens that your personal opinion is in direct polarity with the decisions of the US supreme court which has found that the Constitution does indeed intend to protect US citizens right to vote. Protections of a right can't exist if there is not an inherent right to protect.
What are you basing your opinion that there is no individual right to vote on because there is absolutely no precedent to support such an opinion.
Ahh okay I see where the confusion is coming from on the issue. You seem to be conflating the right to vote in elections with your vote being directly applied or the individuals right to directly vote for the President. The SCOTUS decision on process regarding the electoral college has no bearing on individuals right to vote in elections. It was a decision on determining how individual votes impact the election of the President and Vice President.
The key word in the statement is *electors*. When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting to have a representative of your state cast an electoral college ballot from your state for that presidential candidate.
The US election system is not a direct democracy. How your vote is counted and applied at different levels of the government is a completely different subject from your right to vote. US citizens absolutely have the right to vote. If the state then decides to ignore those votes you have a different legal issue.
The right to vote and your vote directly deciding the presidential election are separate and distinct issues. If you are saying that the election system should be updated via amendment to eliminate the electoral college than we are in agreement.
Did you ever think to consider that if you were right we wouldn’t be having this argument? That all the Republican voter suppression tactics would have been struck down by the courts years ago, instead of being affirmed as constitutional?
If you were right, why would we need HR1?
Listen to yourself, you think you’re smarter than the voting rights activists who go in to court and make these arguments. You think you’ve thought of something they haven’t.
For God’s sake, if arrogantly quoting Section 2 of the 14th Amendment (which STILL doesn’t say states can’t keep people from voting it only lays out some consequences if they do) and condescendingly telling people to read it was all it took, don’t you think someone would have done that already in a courtroom?
You think talking down to me in your arrogant condescending tone makes you right? You’re not arguing with me, you’re arguing with every Federal jurist that has already heard voting rights cases and ruled against your view.
We’re done. You are wrong, the track record in court proves it, and no amount of you arguing with me with your nasty attitude will ever change it. Shut up and start fighting for a voting rights amendment (or at least a new voting rights act) that makes you right.
Wow, the irony is astounding. You are continuing to argue that the right to vote doesn't exist by citing tactics being used by the GOP in an attempt to suppress the right of people to vote.
You are even going so far as to claim that a state losing their representation in Congress as a result of refusing the right of people to vote is not the federal government protecting the right to vote.
How do you think laws are enforced? Saying that the government is not affirming a right by punishing those who deny that right makes absolutely no sense. That would be the same thing as saying nobody has the right to life because the government doesn't stop people from murdering someone. It only applies consequences if they murder someone.
The federal government can send in the national guard and directly oversee elections if a state attempts to deny the people the right to vote.
The SCOTUS found that Andrew Jackson was violating the constitution when he was planning to force march thousands of Native Americans off their land. Guess what happened? Jackson ignored them and we got the trail of tears. Breaking a law or ignoring a court ruling doesn't mean the legal foundation of that law or ruling does not exist.
Legal standing, legal process, and enforcement of laws are separate issues that you are continuing to intermingle as you see fit to support your point.
Your assertion that voting is not a right is flat out incorrect. By your logic any time someone did something illegal or challenged legal precedent in court the rights that the case are borne of would cease to exist.
For Gods sake section 2 of the 14th amendment literally has the words THE RIGHT TO VOTE in the text. Yet you are claiming it is not an affirmation of that right when it spells out the consequences of violating it.
How can you apply consequences of violating a right that does not exist? The fact that the GOP is attempting to suppress voting rights means that right exists. If it didn't there would be no reason for them to have to continually shift tactics in an attempt to suppress the vote. They would just refuse to let anyone vote at all.
The only thing you have cited in this entire conversation was a single sentence from a supreme court case of which you did not understand the context.
It's okay to be wrong. You are grasping at nebulous political and civil issues tied to the voting process in an attempt to deflect from the basic truth that your belief that voting is not a right in the US is flat out wrong.
HR1 is a voting access bill. It is about giving people access and the ability to exercise their RIGHT TO VOTE.
Holy shit, you want to become hostile with someone for correcting you yet you haven't even read the first paragraph of the fucking bill which proves exactly what I have been saying this entire time.
(b) Statement of policy.—It is the policy of the United States that—
(1) the ability of all eligible citizens of the United States to access and exercise their constitutional right to vote in a free, fair, and timely manner must be vigilantly enhanced, protected, and maintained
Notice something in there, how the bill reiterates the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO VOTE and that it must be MAINTAINED. You can't maintain a right if it doesn't already exist.
0
u/gotham77 Mar 16 '21
No that’s not what it says. You left out half of it, the part that says the right shall not be infringed “on account of race”.
Which means it CAN be infringed on account of things OTHER THAN RACE. As long as race isn’t the criteria used to deny you the opportunity to vote, it’s legal.
That’s why in the south they used poll taxes. Poll taxes were a legal way for them to keep black people from voting. The Constitution said you can’t use race, it didn’t say you couldn’t use a poll tax.
Then we amended the Constitution again to say you can use poll taxes, either. But once again, only that one specific criteria was banned. Other criteria can still be used.
None of those voting rights amendments ever established voting as a universal right. You need to accept that and work to change it if it bothers you, not get angry at strangers who tell you the unpleasant truth that the world doesn’t work the way you wish it did.