# Validity of Constitutional Amendments - Political Implications **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/validity-of-constitutional-amendments-political-implications/1021303 **Category:** Politics & Elections **Tags:** trump **Created:** [July 25, 2025, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/validity-of-constitutional-amendments-political-implications/1021303 "2025-07-25T02:50:46Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 2
### Author: ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train) #### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/validity-of-constitutional-amendments-political-implications/1021303/2 "2025-07-25T04:47:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Similarly to the story with the reconstruction amendments, later amendment ratifications were not seriously questioned despite many of the state legislatures being illegitimate due to 15th amendment violations (Blacks stopped from voting). I think you are conflating two separate issues. The practice of blocking eligible people from voting or registering to vote is certainly a violation of rights (as explicitly defined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but which was established under general Constitutional principles). However, that doesn’t negate the legitimacy of an otherwise regular election process, i.e. counting the votes that were legally cast. That Black voters (and women, and Native Americans, et cetera) is a shameful disregard for what should be democratic norms of allowing all non-felon citizens of age of majority to participate in the electoral franchise but it doesn’t illegitimize elections where those rights were not protected. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > This continues today with Fourteenth Amendment Article 3, which by original intent would have stopped Donald Trump from becoming president, being ignored. Although we are in violent agreement that what Donald Trump did on January 6, 2021 was in point of fact inciting an insurrection [even if some people want to claim otherwise](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-wasn-t-a-coup/930407), he was never convicted in either a court of law or by the Senate during an impeachment trial, which made the attempt in several states to remove him from the ballot a pointless and futile effort because there was no legal basis to do so. Stranger --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/validity-of-constitutional-amendments-political-implications/1021303)._