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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

I found a good link...

A regular commentor here, Cynthia, responded to my post about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She gave a great link which talks about those rights that we take for granted which are not concretely in the US Constitution. Yes even voting rights which it says...

The Right to Vote

The Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. You cannot deny the right to vote because of
race or sex. Citizens of Washington DC can vote for President; 18-year-olds can vote; you can vote even if you fail to pay a poll tax. The Constitution also requires that anyone who can vote for the "most numerous branch" of their state legislature can vote for House members and Senate members. Note that in all of this, though, the Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example. This is precisely why so many amendments have been needed over time - the qualifications for voters are left to the states. And as long as the qualifications do not conflict with anything in the Constitution, that right can be withheld. For example, in Texas, persons declared mentally incompetent and felons currently in prison or on probation are denied the right to vote.

Thanks to Roy Neale for the idea.

So many rights that we take for granted not solidly in the constitution. So many things we say like "it's a free country" and it's not even in the constitution. Interesting.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can you believe even Iraq's constitution has a provision for its citizens to vote? America, from my understanding, is the only first world country that does provide a provision in its constitution for voting.

It does make you wonder about this whole free world thing they keep talking about...

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