The Time for Universal Suffrage Has Come
In some states, staying on voter registration rolls has become increasingly difficult. Those struggles highlight a critical fact: no one of eligible age to vote should be disqualified from doing so.
(Voting Machines in Virginia. Image courtesy of politico.com)
A Brief History of Gradual Suffrage
When America’s Founding Fathers outlined a plan for the new nation they wanted to create, universal suffrage was an idea they would have laughed out of every convention in which rich people traveled across the country to make their voices heard. In those days, only rich people could afford to attend a convention: one had to own or rent a horse and carriage, then had to be able to put up with months of travel, then had to find lodgings, food, and possibly new clothing for themselves as they sat in a convention hall sweating through their garments in summer heat without air conditioning. Poor people were excluded from this process by simply not having the means to support themselves on the road.
The rich people of Benjamin Franklin’s day were property owners, some of whom had obtained documents from the English crown declaring the lands were theirs. They then stole it from natives living there by force. Others were successful businessmen. However they obtained their wealth, all of them agreed: no lower class should ever be able to threaten upper class interests in the new nation, however democratic it may have appeared.
That was the trap put in place by the Founding Fathers. They established a representative Republic, rather than a democracy. A Republic, according to Socrates in Plato’s book by the same name, is a nation in which the wisest people ruled. The wisest people in Franklin’s day were those who had money, for they were the only ones who had access to a quality education.
Education became the litmus test for whether or not someone could vote. Women were excluded from voting, since most women in Franklin’s day did not receive an education. Poor migrants were excluded; many of them did not speak English or were incapable of writing their own name. Kidnapped citizens from Africa bought to America to work as slaves were excluded; the earliest version of the Constitution held they were 3/5 of a person, less than human.
As the nation’s history unfolded, voting rights became a central issue for many activist causes. Freed slaves were, in theory, guaranteed the right to vote- even if, in practice under Jim Crow laws, casting a ballot was difficult, if not impossible. Women gained the right to vote only after decades of activism and brutal tactics against women who advocated for their own enfranchisement.
Suffrage movements culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which, in theory, prohibited discrimination against voters on the basis of race- even if, in practice, gerrymandering districts and ballot access laws made it more difficult for some people to vote than others. While the Act dismantled much of Jim Crow, Republicans in local and state legislatures continued working to disenfranchise as many black people as they could.
The 89th Congress, during which the Voting Rights act was passed, was one in which the Democratic Party held a super-majority. At the beginning of the 89th Congress, 68 Democrats were elected against 32 Republicans. 295 Democrats were elected against 140 Republicans. Only six states in the country had a 60% or more plurality of Republicans in the House of Representatives: South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama, Ohio, and Vermont. By contrast, 31 states had a 60% or more plurality of Democrats.
The Democratic agenda of the day: ensure equal rights for all, fight a war on poverty in order to create Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” and prosecute the Vietnam War with an aim of winning of it regardless of the cost. Regardless of the party’s domestic successes at the time, the war became so unpopular that it led to the election of Richard Nixon, who would eventually resign, making Gerald Ford president. Ford had served as the minority leader in the 89th Congress when the Voting Rights Act was passed.
Nixon was a president who ushered in the war on drugs- a dubious enterprise that, whatever its original intentions, led to over-policing of black neighborhoods, disproportionate jailing of black citizens, and deepening combative relationships between police departments on their constituents.
Those who were convicted of felony charges- most often black men in Nixon’s day- became unable to vote. The New Jim Crow sought to put black people in prison in order to get free or low-paying labor from them while at the same time stripping away their voting rights.
Rather than ceasing their program of discriminatory practices towards black citizens, the Republican Party has, over time, continued acting in overtly racist and bigoted ways, causing the party to be unpopular in minority communities. With hatred of Latino citizens, and Asian citizens (as exemplified during COVID when the disease was called “the Chinese virus”), the Republican Party’s official platform has caused it to put off voters it might otherwise have gained by practicing even a modicum of kindness.
This has led to the Great Replacement Theory- a conservative conspiracy theory which claims members of minority groups will together one day outnumber Caucasian people in America, leading to permanent Republican losses at the polls. Their answer to this problem, which is less significant than they imagine due to low voter turnout, is to prevent members of minority groups from voting at all by using whatever tools they have available to do so.
John Roberts, who had been against the Voting Rights Act as early as 1981, made one of his career goals the disenfranchisement of otherwise qualified voters. In 2013, as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he issued a ruling on the case of Shelby v. Holder. In the ruling, the majority, led by Roberts, held that the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional because it failed to address the current situation.
In his opinion, Roberts wrote:
There is no denying, however, that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.
Roberts suggested that because Jim Crow laws were no longer in place, having been made ineffectual by the Voting Rights Act, the Act itself was no longer constitutional. In other words, whether something was constitutional or not, as regards this case at least, depended on whether current conditions required the law in question or didn’t. Such requirement could only be interpreted on a subjective basis, given that it would be impossible for the Chief Justice, without several years of research, to come to a conclusion about every single voting district in America and whether racial discrimination persists with regards to voting rights or not.
He explains:
Coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices. The formula captures States by reference to literacy tests and low voter registration and turnout in the 1960s and early 1970s. But such tests have been banned nationwide for over 40 years. And voter registration and turnout numbers in the covered States have risen dramatically in the years since. Racial disparity in those numbers was compelling evidence justifying the preclearance remedy and the coverage formula. There is no longer such a disparity.
Whatever his opinion of conditions at the time of the ruling, it’s clear that, since then, people of color are being deterred from voting by using practices that Voting Rights Act would have addressed, prior to his ruling. In 2008, the disparities had closed. By 2022, they had increased. By 2024, they continue to become worse still.
The preclearance remedy Roberts mentions is a system whereby jurisdictions with prior histories of violating voter rights through discrimination must, under the Voting Rights Act, request permission from the federal government to make changes to their local voting laws. Roberts held that, since disparities didn’t exist, jurisdictions with a discriminatory history no longer had to ask permission to make changes.
The result: states such as Texas have been on anti-voter crusade for some time. The efforts of state officials there culminated in a press release last month in which the governor bragged about over one million voters being removed from voter rolls. Other states, such as my own state of Republican-controlled New Hampshire, have been pressing for more stringent voter ID laws while doing away with challenged voter affadavits- a process by which someone who forgets their ID on voting day (as I once did) can have their picture taken and sign a form saying they are eligible to vote.
Voter fraud in New Hampshire is almost non-existent. In other states, where instances of it have cropped up, it’s often been Republican voters who have voted more than once. Ineligible or illegal ballots compromise an incredibly small portion of all voting ballots each election day. Yet, voter fraud is always at the top of the list when Republicans advance laws to make it harder for people they vote.
They would like, if they can get it, a Republic of the kind the Founding Fathers imagined in which very few people can vote to return. The difference is, while education was the litmus test of Franklin’s day, the litmus test of today is simply whether voting restrictions can help them win elections.
The Case for Universal Suffrage
The remedies for this are simple, yet would require Democrats in the Senate, House, Presidency, and Supreme Court. The party’s history with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and subsequent additional provisions suggest that, while they regularly exclude third-party candidates from presidential ballots to prevent spoiler candidates, they at least seek increased suffrage where and when they can.
The first remedy: everyone who is of legal age to vote and is legally entitled to do so should be placed on a voter roll without having to register, and without exception. This should include felons, repeat offenders, those found guilty of voter fraud, and those serving prison terms for life. Voting should take place in prison, even if it is done by mail-in ballots. Those who commit voter fraud should be allowed the chance to vote again, even if they do so behind bars.
The second remedy: the mail service must be fully funded and experience no delays during election season, even if this means the national postal service outsources work to UPS, FedEx, DHL, or another delivery company. Mail-in ballots are how military service members, embassy staff, foreign aid workers, and others vote from abroad. It’s also how people with mobility issues, those without cars, or those with chronic health issues, may choose to vote. Universal enfranchisement means all of these people have the chance to cast a ballot. Imposing a standard of in-person voting only disqualifies some people from voting who may otherwise have broken no laws to warrant their disqualification.
The third remedy: every voting district in every state should automatically be mapped by the size of the local counties and should afterwards be unchangeable. This would be an anti-gerrymandering law. Gerrymandering is the process by which elected officials change districts in order to absorb more voters of their own party in order to ensure easier wins for themselves. The conflict of interest in this case is clear: no one who relies on elections for their salary and/or health benefits should determine who gets to vote for them and who doesn’t. No one person or group of people should entrusted to do this, given a potential for corruption. Reducing each voting district to a county, or group of counties, is an impartial method in which no official may interfere with existing laws for his own benefit. The election results will be what they are based on the candidates and their campaigns, rather than squiggly lines on a map.
The fourth remedy: universal enfranchisement for third-party candidates is essential if a democracy is desired for a national government, rather than a republic. Functionally, this would mean any third-party who gains ballot access in two straight presidential elections would thereafter have automatic ballot access in every state and municipal election. This access could be revoked if they fail to field a candidate in any presidential election, after which they would have to start over from scratch. Additionally, states should no longer get to decide what criteria should be met to gain ballot access or not: federal legislation should be required to determine what that should be. Otherwise, states would simply change the laws to make their standards impossibly high to meet, as Texas has done and as Georgia is attempting to do.
The fifth remedy: the Supreme Court’s power must be checked, challenged, and diminished. Both parties would find this a reasonable solution when the other party holds a majority there. Under the Democratic Warren Court, which was the court of 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed, Republicans of the day would have liked measures to challenge the court. Under the corrupt Roberts court, Democrats would like to impeach corrupt and biased judges who refuse to recuse themselves in even instances of obvious conflicts of interest. Strictly speaking, while the Supreme Court is not the final say in American law, its adjudication is so strong that when it wants to make laws of its own, it can- for no other reason than it prefers to do so. It has the power to assume powers unto itself not delegated unto it by constitutional authority, powers that rightly belong to federal and state legislatures.
Universal suffrage would be an unpopular idea with the Republican Party who would see it as a means of ensuring their own defeat. Democrats may be leery of it too, due to spoiler candidates from far-left groups who feel dissatisfied with some of the party’s specific positions. These candidates may at times cause a Democratic candidate to lose; while the immediate result would be undesirable, in the long run, a responsive Democratic Party who listens to its voters in order to beat out third-party candidates would be one capable of governing more effectively.
In the long run, universal suffrage would solve more problems than it would create. It removes the need for a litmus test to determine who is worthy of voting and who isn’t. It removes the expenditures and time used to throw people off of voting rolls for reasons other than no longer residing in a particular district either by moving away or passing away. It would, in theory, remove tricks and traps some legislatures use to make voting and ballot access more difficult.
A person would simply have to provide proof of residency that they live in a certain district, and are eligible to cast a ballot in order to vote If they did not add themselves to the voter rolls in their jurisdiction, presenting proofs at the polls would be sufficient to add them under the supervision of the state’s attorney general. Those who are without a permanent residence need only provide a proof of residence form from a caseworker or shelter official stating where they live. Roaming travelers, such as those who live in motor homes throughout the year, would become eligible to vote in the jurisdiction of their last permanent residence through the use of a self-attestation form.
Using false proof of residency and self-attestation forms are already punishable under existing laws, as is misidentifying oneself or casting a ballot illegally. People who do so are few and far between; often, they are caught committing fraud. Challenges to third-party candidates through ballot petitions is one way to prevent fictitious parties and candidates from coming forward; two campaigns of verified supporters and candidates over the course of eight years, in addition to gaining sufficient funding to stave off legal challenges in court, should be enough to verify whether the third party is real or not. So far, no major third-party candidates in the last twenty years have been found to have submitted fraudulent petitions or ran imaginary candidates.
While universal suffrage is difficult to achieve, and perhaps just as difficult to maintain, it’s the best way to ensure that every eligible voter who turns up on election day or submits a ballot by mail in a timely manner can have their vote counted. The choice between universal suffrage or not is to either have a republic wherein a minority rules a majority or whether every citizen gets to choose for themselves who their elected representative can be.
It’s nothing more than the choice between a representative government and an oligarchical dictatorship.
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