Tax delinquents can vote on taxes? Why?

We just had our town budget vote here (payed for by property tax), and a few weeks beforehand we got our annual town report (which listed delinquent property tax amounts).

Which got me to wondering- Why are homeowners who don’t pay their property taxes allowed to vote on the town budget? I’m sure many of them (like many other voters) say "Wow that’s a high budget, my tax bill is going to go up! " and vote no.

So why is this possible? It’s a like a high school drop out being able to vote for class president, right?

Why shouldn’t a person whose taxes are too high for them to pay be able to vote for lower taxes? Who would know better than them? That’s what government by the people, of the people, and for the people is.

If tax delinquents can serve in the Obama administration as Treasury secretary and be nominated for Secretary of HHS, then why would you want to take away their right to vote?

People without children are allowed to vote against school tax levies, people who don’t like to read are allowed to vote on library measures, people who don’t drive are allowed to vote on taxes on vehicle licenses, etc.

What do you say about renters being able to vote?

You could argue that some of these people pay indirectly, but that’s not always true in the short run, for example in a rent controlled market.

Also, the formulas for HUD/Section 8 subsidies are simply “pay X% of your income for rent”, and people who qualify for such subsidies are completely insensitive to increases in property taxes (or rent altogether, FTM).

Where I live, there are a lot of people who qualify for this program, and they are constantly agitating for more spending on schools and other forms of spending. (They also bid up the price of housing, but that’s another issue.)

As Lord Camden put it, no taxation without representation.

Why are people without children allowed to vote on school bond referenda? Won’t they just vote against the borrowing?

Why are people who don’t drive allowed to vote on road and transportation referenda?

In my “special tax district” we were asked to a public hearing about borrowing 100 million dollars (!) to build a special indoor swimming complex for some student athletes to compete in. The complex would displace and destroy a public park and a historic chapel, and approximately 80% of the users were expected to be from outside the special tax district, according to the estimates I read in several venues (although I am not sure who compiled those estimates.)

Although I do not have any children in swimming programs, I was allowed to come to the meeting. Unsurprisingly, most attendees were against destroying a public park and historic building to spend 100 million building a facility for other people who do not live in the special tax district and would not, themselves, have to pay for the facility.

Why were we allowed to do that?
.

It doesn’t make any sense to me. Isn’t it against the law for a felon to vote? A felon is a person that has broken the law. So if non payment of taxes is against the law why are we not suspending the rights of these people who are breaking the law, albeit it may not be a felony?

That varies by state. Here in Massachusetts, they had a ballot question back in the early 2000’s that disenfranchised prisoners. Until then, there were no restrictions due to being a criminal. And, even now, they can vote once they’re out of prison. Other states do bar felons from voting for life.

That’s a false equivocation. Not everything that is against the law is a felony.

I’d guess that the true answer to the OP is “Trying to track this and correlate this to votes enough to be able to screen out tax-evasive voters/votes would both overcomplicate the voting process and flirt with privacy issues and/or vote anonymity issues, particularly if there were other issues on the same ballot that they could vote for and we couldn’t just stop them at the door.”

What makes sense is to “allow” felons to vote. Why does breaking certain laws in some states result in losing your vote?

The issue in the US particularly is that TOO FEW people vote. Both the Republicans and Democrats are interested in getting MORE people to vote.

You don’t want to make it hard for them to do so.

What your suggesting would lead to a tiered voting system. If you say a person who is behind in property taxes NOT be allowed to vote for property issues.

OK fair enough, but would they be allowed to vote for President? Governor? Mayor?

If so then you would have to have TWO elections on seperate dates, or two ballots on one date. Then you would have to set up a monitoring system to stop people from voting incorrectly.

Look what happened when the voting rights act lowered the voting age to 18. It as quickly challanged and then Supreme Court upheld the right of the act for federal elections but not state elections.

This left a potential mess with those 18-20 being allowed to vote for federal elections but not state elections in some cases. Quickly the 26th Amendment was passed so that there wouldn’t need to be two systems.

It is important to note that the 26th Amendment passed faster than any other amendment 'cause everyone saw what a mess it’d be.

OK so let’s say you simply say “People behind in their property taxes shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all.”

Both Republican and Democrats would be up in arms because this would mean a lot of people couldn’t vote. And today with so many elections coming down to the wire, every vote counts.

Neither party is going to let one potential vote go to waste.

Basically the attitude is, if property taxes aren’t being collected than it’s up to the governmental agency to be agressive and GET those taxes.

There’s plenty of laws to collect and enforce collection of taxes already they are not being enforced.

If you take away a person’s right to vote, he’ll most likely say, “Who cares,” and simply not vote.

The 24th amendment states, in its entirety:

The reason that tax delinquents can vote is that historically, taxes of various sorts have been used to exclude blacks from voting. As others have noted, this particular amendment doesn’t apply to state offices and the like, but having two systems of who can vote for who is a pain in the ass to implement.

No representation without taxation then?

From what I have read it is because they are considered criminals. In doing a bit more research I found out that two states, Me and VT allow felons to vote. Felons don’t vote because they assume they are not allowed to. With 5 million or more felons out there it is enough to swing a vote. there are also felons that do vote and only a few have been caught.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,441030,00.html

If I’m subject to a law, I should be able to vote on it under any circumstance- whether I’m tax-delinquent, blind, a felon, or whatever. OK, maybe insanity and youth is a good barrier, but still.

You know what doesn’t make sense to me? Isn’t it against the law to kill an eagle? An eagle is a bird. So if chickens are birds, why aren’t we arresting these people that eat chicken, albeit it may not be an eagle?
See how that doesn’t make sense?

It is because they came off the endangered species list. It used to be a crime to kill them.

It isn’t a big enough crime to not pay your taxes to keep you from voting. But, just commit one armed robbery and forget voting again.

Many more states than those two allow felons who have served their terms to vote. And even in the others, there’s a system where a felon can be granted relief from the post-sentence penalties on demonstrating rehabilitation. Convicts – those presently imprisoned for felonies – are not permitted to vote.

Finally, felonies are one class of crime – the most severe ones. Grand theft is a felony; shoplifting a pack of gum is not. Forcible rape or statutory rape – sex with a child – is a felony; making out with someone a month from age of consent, or making an unwanted pass, is not.

In many states, driving with expired insurance or reckless speeding is as much a crime as trespassing on posted property or making harassing phone calls. Do you feel people should lose their vote permanently for any of these?

Tax evasion can be a felony.