Well, this is certainly... scary...
There is a constitutional amendment currently making its way through the House of Representatives which most of us would not even realize is necessary: A Constitutional Right to Vote. The Constitution provides that access to voting must not be discriminatory on the basis of sex, race or age, but nowhere in it does the Citizenry of the United States have the explicit right to a vote in Federal elections.
You can read more about it here.
The linked page includes a quote from the majority opinion in the Supreme Court decision regarding the 2000 Presidential election: "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States."
What this means, technically, is that voting is a State's right, not a Citizen's right. Which means that if a given state were to opt to not hold a general election, but chose that states Electoral College members via some other process, it would not be unconstitutional.
Now, I'll admit, the likelihood of this ever coming up is pretty small, the political backlash for any state government which opted to deny its citizens the chance to vote in a Federal election would be huge. But on the other hand, it does allow for another Florida. What the Supreme Court said, in essense, was that under the Constitution, if Jeb Bush decided to assign the electors to his brother, he didn't really have to even prove that George W. won the popular election.
(I'm not saying that happened, necessarily, but from a Constitutional standpoint, what happened in Florida was completely legal, even if subsequent recounts had determined that Gore won the popular election in Florida.)
And, of course, once we take that down, we should probably also do something about the fact that 24 states do not even have restrictions in place ensuring that the Electors vote according to their party. In our country's history, it has happend 156 times. Now, 71 of those were because the party's candidate died between election day and the Electoral College voting. 3 were abstentions, and the remaining 82 were an Elector opting to vote in a different direction than the voters who voted for him/her directed.
And, while I'm at it, we should also change the allocation of electors to be percentage based. Most states (Maine being one noted exception) give their entire block of electors over to one candidate, even if the voting was split by the slimmest of margins. This means it's theoretically possible for one candidate to win just under half of the national electors in landslides in those states, and the other candidate to win just over half in really close elections, giving the loser of the election an overwhelming majority of popular votes.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before any of the rest, we should correct this oversight and make sure that Citizens of this country are GUARANTEED the right to vote in Federal elections.
Copyright (c) June 22, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net
posted by Liam at 6/22/2005 07:56:00 PM
4 Comments:
You are willing to admit that even after all of the recounting that Bush still won?
Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:27:00 AM
Somehow, I just KNEW that someone was going to grab onto that. I think that LEGALLY, according to the Constitution, he won. I think that MORALLY, the way our country is SUPPOSED to work, he may not have. I also think that, with it 5 years ago, it really is kind of a moot point.
But legality doesn't always make it right. The Bush Administration argued that the illegality of torture under the Geneva Convention did not apply to him, and therefore whatever we do to prisoners is "legal". It doesn't make it right.
So yes, the Supreme Court made the right decision, with regard to voting being a states rights issue, not a Federal one. Jeb Bush made a possibly sleazy but *LEGAL* decision, meaning that W. won legally.
If you'd like to debate whether "legal" equates to "right", just start a good abortion conversation with any member of the religious right. Abortion is currently legal in this country. If you consider it murder, that doesn't make it RIGHT.
And by the way, this is just another example of the small-minded tactic being used increasingly lately: If you don't have the facts on your side, focus on whatever part of the argument you CAN win, or else refocus the discussion on something you can win.
Some examples:
Statement: "Voting is a states right, not guaranteed to citizens. This should be fixed."
Answer: "So you're saying Bush won Florida?"
Statement: "Bush appears to have lied to get us into a war."
Answer: "Why do you hate America?"
Statement: "Religion should be kept separate from government."
Answer: "Why do you hate Christianity?"
Statement: "We shouldn't be mistreating prisoners in Guantanamo Bay prisons."
Answer: "Why do you support the terrorists?"
I'm really getting sick of these small minded tactics. If you can open your mind enough to see the larger picture, feel free to participate. If you're just going to engage in partisan name calling and refocus an important discussion onto a relatively unimportant side issue, you aren't really worth my time.
And for the record, I'm still open to the idea that based on the way our country is SUPPOSED to run, Bush lost, whether his victory was technically legal or not. The issue is whether the Constitution should be changed to codify the way most of us believe a democracy should work. If what happened here in 2000 happened in Iran in last week's election, we'd be crying foul and saying that the election was invalid because the "Will of the People" was twarted.
Liam.
Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:41:00 AM
(but I thought you were the "Will of the people" :-))
On a different subtopic, if you're going to require states to allocate electors proportionately, you're just one step away from eliminating the electoral college altogether. Is that a worthy goal to you?
Friday, June 24, 2005 10:41:00 AM
I think so, yes. I go back and forth on it, but I think as long as we're going to lecture the world on democracy, we ought to actually HAVE one. It astounds me... well, not really, nothing astounds me about this group any more... But it is definitely interesting to me to note that we're already starting to hear the election process in Iran condemned for following a process not too different from the one which led to George Bush being declared our President in 2000.
But when it happens here, it's just the way our system works. When it happens somewhere else, it's a sign that democracy isn't working, and the will of the masses is being thwarted, and constitutes an excuse to invade and "set things right".
Another "do as we say, not as we do" moment brought to you by the American Government.
Liam.
Friday, June 24, 2005 1:07:00 PM
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