...."Right" / "Privilege" to vote...........

I copied the text below from the Missouri Bar Association - it is well written and educational for anyone who wants to know about your "right" or "privilege" to vote. I plan to build off of this information in an upcoming post...................



The Right to Vote

In some respects the reference to voting as a right is a misnomer, for voting is not a right but a privilege. The Constitution delegates to the states the power to decide what qualifications are required of potential voters, thus failing to guarantee voting rights at all.

The Missouri Constitution, in Article 8, Section 2, presents the qualifications which Missourians must meet if they wish to vote. Such criteria as age, residency and registration are found in Missouri's provisions, as in most other states. Those who are confined to mental institutions or are otherwise mentally incapacitated may not vote. Also, those who have been convicted of a felony or crime connected with the exercise of the right of suffrage may be excluded by law from voting. Essentially, however, all duly registered Missourians over 18 years of age are entitled to vote.

Although voting may not be a natural or vested right, it has come to be considered the status of a right which cannot be restricted without just cause. Several constitutional amendments are concerned with the voting rights of Americans. The fact that these were introduced and ratified through the process of constitutional amendment indicates that it is still the prerogative of the states to prescribe the qualifications of voters -- provided that constitutional provisions are not violated.

The oldest of these amendments is the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits denial of voting status on the basis of color, race or previous servitude. The terminology of the amendment is important, for it is here that the phrase "right to vote" is coined within the text of the U. S. Constitution. All other amendments dealing with suffrage were to follow this precedent and refer to voting as a right.

Section 2 of this amendment is also important, for it is the source of several pieces of legislation which deal with states' efforts to circumvent the thrust of the Fifteenth Amendment. One of the techniques used by the states was the grandfather clause, which did not expressly prohibit blacks from voting, but rather forced all who were not descendants of those who could vote in January, 1867, to take a stringent literacy test. The effect was to bar blacks from voting because their ancestors, who were slaves, could not vote. The courts were dedicated in their efforts to eliminate disenfranchisement because of racial discrimination, and the "grandfather clause" provisions were struck down in 1915.

It eventually became obvious that case-by-case litigation was an ineffective means to ensure that Americans would not be denied the right to vote; thus, legislation was passed to implement the purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 reiterated the amendment in announcing that "no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard . . . shall be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

Another group of American citizens -- women -- were enfranchised with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Women had long campaigned for suffrage, with both Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone forming organizations to promote the movement as early as 1869. Although 12 states gave suffrage to women within their borders by 1913, it took the process of constitutional amendment to extend this right to women throughout the nation.

On February 4, 1964, yet another amendment to the Constitution concerned with the voting rights of Americans was ratified. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment provides that the right of American citizens to vote in national elections "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any other state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax." This amendment established that the right of any citizen to vote in an election was not to be determined by his economic capacity to pay a poll tax. With passage of this amendment, another possible subtle means to disenfranchise Americans was diminished.

The U. S. Supreme Court was later to deal with the issue of poll taxes as a prerequisite to voting in state and local elections, with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to eliminate poll taxes altogether.

It remained for one more group of Americans to have their voting rights guaranteed by constitutional amendment. In 1970, the Voting Rights Act lowered the minimum age of voters from 21 to 18 in national, state and local elections. But the Supreme Court was to hold in the same year that such a legislative attempt did not hold to the legal processes of the Constitution. It was ruled that only through the Constitution could the states' power to establish voter qualifications be modified. But a movement for the extension of voting rights to 18-year-olds was already underway, and a constitutional amendment -- the Twenty-Sixth Amendment -- giving them this right was ratified in 1971.

It is a testimony to the importance of the right of the people to vote that more amendments to the U.S. Constitution deal with this issue than with any other. The maintenance of our way of life and the system that makes it possible is dependent upon the input of the people. The legal heritage of our nation demonstrates the awareness of our people that to deny one the right to vote is not only detrimental to that individual, but also to the system itself. Voting is still a privilege in that it may be denied of certain individuals on legitimate grounds, but it is a right in that the grounds must be strongly warranted and legally justified.