Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. got it wrong, too, but maybe he should know better. He leaves out the rest of a sentence, and so misquotes Bush v Gore, misleading readers.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore (2000) that "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States."
http://www.house.gov/jackson/VotingAmendment.htm
Jackson is behind a push for direct election of the President of the United States, something the Founding Framers explicitly and pointedly rejected. They devised the Electoral College for good reasons.
Do Americans Have The Right To Vote?
National Press Club - Washington, DC
By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL-2)
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
Today's press conference is focused on three issues involving the vote: (1) protecting the vote in the 2004 election; (2) the American people are grown and should elect their President and Vice President directly and eliminate the Electoral College; and (3) we need to add a voting rights amendment to the Constitution. I support all three, but my assignment today is mainly to discuss adding a voting rights amendment to the Constitution...
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/il02_jackson/sp040907DoAmericansHaveTheRightToVote.html
salon.com writer got it wrong
You have no right to vote
The Constitution doesn't guarantee it, the Republicans know it, and real democratic values in our country are under assault.
By Garrett Epps
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/09/21/no_right_to_vote/index_np.html
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/political_reform/right_to_vote.html
http://www.fairvote.org/righttovote/faq1.htm
The Bush v Gore ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court didn't stop with this phrase that catches one's attention:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote
The highest court in the land continued:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1.
Here's what Bush v Gore said in totality explaining carefully
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1.
This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28—33.
History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another. See, e.g., Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 665 (1966) (“[O]nce the franchise is granted to the electorate, lines may not be drawn which are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”). It must be remembered that “the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964).
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
Letter
Sorry guys there's no right to vote
Thursday, November 02, 2006 3:17 PM
What follows is a letter sent to my school newspaper
Graham Shaw is Criminal Justice Major
Dear Editor
After breezing through your article on asking students to vote I came upon a rather common error that people make when discussing elections. Namely, there is no right to vote. The Constitution only states reasons that you cannot deny a person the vote, reasons such as race and sex. It is a plain and simple fact that some people should not be allowed to vote.
The vote should be denied to anyone who does not have some basic knowledge of our nations political system, and history. So I’m going to give a short test if you don’t get at least a 70 then do us all a favor and don’t vote, there is no excuse for not knowing these.
http://rantingrightwinger.townhall.com/Default.aspx?mode=post&g=4b817888-1ff0-44f1-906c-8e1839d5ed71
XII - Manner of Choosing a President and Vice-President
This Amendment altered Article 2 Section 1 Part 2
Passed by Congress December 9, 1803. Ratified July 27, 1804.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amend1.htm
http://www.law.emory.edu/cms/site/index.php?id=3080
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