Firstly, a driver’s license is most definitely **not ** proof of citizenship. We currently have no national ID card, so you’d have to implement that. If you did, I’m certain you could not get such an ID card in one day, so all you would be doing is moving back the verification period from the voter registration date to the date the person applies for a national ID. And you are ignoring the huge political battle that would take place over such a national ID card.
Well, it lowers the minimum age for US Presidential candidates from 35 (IIRC) to 18 and nullifies the “must have been born in the United States” clause.
That would be among the biggest changes, I reckon…
Yes, it opens the door to Avril Lavigne’s bid.
How is this supposed to work with felons that are currently serving time? Do they “reside” in the district their prison is in? If not, are they only allowed absentee ballots? How do you reconcile that with the requirement that they be allowed to register and vote on the day of election? What about non-felons that are incarcerated on election day? Do Sherrif’s deputies have to escort them to the polling place, watch them vote, and then return them to jail or should they just let me go and say “be back in an hour or else”?
Until these and many other practical objections can be dealt with, I couldn’t support anything as broad as either of the proposed amendments.
No it doesn’t. These proposed amendments deal with qualifications to vote, not with qualifications to hold any public office, including the presidency. We would need a separate amendment to lower the age-limit for the presidency, or to open the office to naturalized citizens.
Some states do allow incarcerated felons to vote, and I believe the practice is to allow them absentee ballots for wherever they resided before they were incarcerated. For the rest, I would call your attention to the obvious fact that setting up a registration-and-polling station in a prison or a county jail would be a very simple matter – since you’ve got all the potential voters gathered together in one place to start with, and they mostly have nothing better to do with their time on election day.
Lemur, once again, where were you in 2000?
Because without a constitutional amendment, the state legislatures still have the option to appoint the presidential electors regardless of how the people voted, as the Republicans in control of the Florida legislature threatened to do in 2000! :mad:
Interesting story on blacks. On paper they had the constitutional right to vote, but in practice they didn’t due to state imposed literacy tests, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, etc. Those problems didn’t correct themselves from within those states, Congress stepped in and put and put an end to it. They federalized the process.
Lots of our rights are federally enforceable for every citizen who is denied them. Free speech for instance. I don’t see what’s so bad about “federalizing” another individual right.
Why even have nonvoters in the first place? Shouldn’t voting always be a fundamental right instead of a privilege that you need to persuade others to give you?
From the OP (my bolding):
Did they threaten to vote for Gore???
Sorry for the confusion – I was referring to the Voting Rights Amendment proposed by Jesse Jackson, Jr., which does not mention qualifications for public office.
Regarding Florida in 2000 – no, the Republicans in regard of the legislature did not threaten to vote for Gore, they threatened to give all Florida’s electoral votes to Bush regardless of the results of any recount process. :mad: :mad: :mad: And they might have done so, had Anthony Scalia not cut the knot for them. Jeez, were you asleep back then?
You guys REALLY need to give this up. Bush won, Gore lost.
I was not asleep. I followed the ridiculous procedings every day and was glad the legislature had the option to end to the whole mess. If the election is a draw (which, statitstically it was), having the legislature determine the outcome is a reasonable solution.
No, sir. Gore won, Bush lost. In Florida, anyway. But that’s not the point – the point is that the legislature, purely for partisan purposes, was willing to ignore little details like the actual vote count. You think that’s a “reasonable solution”? This must be some new meaning of the term “reasonable” I wasn’t familiar with. And if a constitutional amendment could stop that from ever happening again, then we need it for that reason alone!
Under the rules, yes, Bush won. But if everybody who wanted to cast a vote got to cast it and have their choice accurately counted, Gore no doubt would have won.
Did not!
That is EXACTLY the point. You assume that there is a perfect system for counting votes. None exists, nor will it ever exist. In the event that the system breaks down, as it did in Florida, it is indeed reasonable to have a back-up plan. You may argue about whether or not the Florida case qualifies, but you cannot argue that there never could be a case when it would.
No, but I can and do argue that the effort to produce an accurate vote count should always be made, and never short-circuited, as it was in Florida.
As for a “back-up plan” – see my thread on the idea of a Tribunate – a separately elected fourth branch of government which would police the other three, and also run the elections, the Census, and post-Census redistricting: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264462
That still doesn’t address the problem of no being able to determine the outcome in time. Does the “Tribunate” decide? No, it has to be the state.
If the state has a track record of wrongfully disenfranchising voters, this is like having the fox guard the henhouse.
Yes, but if citizens of Florida don’t like the way elections are held in Florida, they are perfectly free to change it. I don’t see how allowing felons to vote would have made much difference in Florida. Or rather, I don’t see how allowing felons to vote would make much difference in a future situation analgous to the 2000 presidential election. People bumped off the voting lists because they were felons or thought to be felons only made a difference because the vote count was so close in that jurisdiction. Another very close vote, only this time with felons, would still be a very close vote, and wouldn’t make it easier to count all the votes.
Florida was only important because the election there was very very close, and the electoral vote was close enough that whoever won Florida would win the election.
If we assume a future election (this time allowing felons) that was very close, allowing felons wouldn’t make the election any more decidable, or any less likely to be very close. The election in Florida was so close that ANY sort of tweaks you might make in the voting procedure would have given the state to one candidate or the other. But tweaking the voting laws such that Gore would win if the Florida election were held again is no guarantee that (say) democrats would be more likely to win future elections, or that future elections would not be close.
If an election is so close that it isn’t decidable by the election officials, allowing the State legislature to choose the slate of electors doesn’t seem any more wrong than flipping a coin. If the state legislature makes a choice that the electorate finds unfair they can vote the bastards out in the next election, or recall them.
You want to avoid more Florida debacles, I understand that. But changing the electoral laws so the Florida election wouldn’t have been so close doesn’t make a future debacle less likely.
What is your solution if there simply is no way to decide the winner of a given election in time? It’s easy to say that it should never happen-- I agree with that.