Did you know Voting isn’t a Constitutional Right of Citizenship? - Part Three

What can we do to fix this right of citizenship and voting disconnect to strengthen and improve our Constitutional Republic & Representative Democracy.

On of the reasons that myself and my colleagues started The Future - Today & Tomorrow Super PAC is to bring policy solutions and educate people on how our governmental structures work. The lack of common understanding and awareness is unfortunate but can be combatted by both who we elect to office and what organizations do with the opportunities we have to engage the public. When we step out into the awareness and education phase of our work directly and through our Let's Talk Roundtable series, we will always end with potential solutions to the challenges we face. In part three of this series, we will bring our thoughts on the solutions.

So what can we do next?

We need to codify the right to vote as a Statutory law right of Citizenship and then introduce a Constitutional Amendment to make the Right to Vote a Constitutionally guaranteed right of citizenship. The MAGA Dictatorship Republicans talk about only wanting citizens to vote and claiming that “legal citizens” have the unfettered right to vote. If their claims were true, why do citizens who have been convicted of a crime or in some states, are in jail awaiting trial, lose their right to vote? They haven't lost their citizenship, but they have lost their right to vote. If the MAGA Dictatorship Republicans truly believe that only American citizens should vote, why are they silent on the termination of American citizens right to vote under this condition? This purposeful termination of American citizens right to vote is a direct model for MAGA controlled states to extend the termination of voting rights to other classifications of American citizens. MAGA Dictatorship Republican members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA Republican media voices like Charlie Kirk have expressed support for restricting the ability to register to vote if you move from a Democratic majority voting State to a Republican voting State, so you don't pollute the voting choices of MAGA Republican voters[1], which is a removal on the right to vote based upon geographical and political voting class. This falls in line with Justice Harlan's dissent in Wesberry?v.?Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), where Harlen opined (alone at the time) that Article I, section 2 permits the states to completely disqualify from the franchise any group of citizen voters that it chooses to disqualify. It is not hard to see that if a MAGA Dictatorship Republican State (I'm looking at you Florida), decided to pass a law to prevent American citizens moving from New York from being able to register to vote once they move to Florida, that the MAGA Supreme Court majority would overturn this action nor would a MAGA Dictatorship Republican President's Justice Department take legal action to support this type of Geographical and Political disenfranchisement of American citizens. The Roberts MAGA Republican Supreme Court has violated standing judicial precedent, statutory law and standing provisions, so nothing should be considered out of bounds for this Anti-Constitutional Republic and Representative Democracy form of Governance.

The only way to prevent these actions starts with American voters and who they elect. Electing Democratic President, Democratic Majority U.S. House of Representatives, a Democratic and Independent Majority U.S. Senate with at least 50 members who are willing to reform or repeal the Cloture/Filibuster rule in 2024 is the first step. Retaining these majorities for the next 7 election cycles and electing Democratic and/or Non-MAGA Coalition Majorities in State Legislatures (Alaska is a great model by electing Non-MAGA Republicans, Democratic and 3rd party legislators to form a coalition majority for States like Florida, Alabama, South Dakota and other deeply MAGA held legislatures) in 2024 and a minimum of the next 10 cycles going forward is the second step. This is mandatory for closing the loop and enshrining the right to vote as a right tied to your citizenship.

Will the most recent package of voting right Bills (Freedom to Vote Act & John H. Lewis Voting Rights Act) be enough to protect Citizen Voting Rights or is there more to be done?

Mostly, in conjunction with other actions, but not because of what receives the majority of media coverage or Pro-Democracy advocates communication says. The underpinning of the Pro-Dictatorship movement is the disconnection between Constitutionally guaranteed rights of US Citizenship and the Citizen’s right to vote as a provisional grant of individual States. in the 117th Congress, HR 5746, The NASA National Enhanced Use Leasing Extension Act of 2021 was repurposed via parliamentary procedure to insert new text for the ‘Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act[1]’’ sets a clear level of national/50 State & D.C. standards for voting rights, so that American Citizens won’t be treated differently via the State they reside in. What’s most important, was that the new combined Act (passed by the House of Representatives on 1/12/22) included an updated version of the Right To Vote Act (pg. 286-295)[2], which was introduced separately on August 4, 2021 by Senators’ Ossoff, King, Padilla, Klobuchar & Warnock as S. 2615. The?Right to Vote Act?ensures and guarantees all actions necessary for American Citizens to participate in elections, including

1.??????????????? registering to vote,

2.??????????????? obtaining any ID required to vote,

3.??????????????? casting a ballot, and

4.??????????????? ensuring that ballot is counted without partisan (MAGA Dictatorship officials as Trump is demanding[3]) officials overthrowing the results.

The Right to Vote Act starts in subsection (a) with the following: “Every citizen of legal voting age shall have the right to vote and have one’s vote counted in elections for Federal office free from any burden on the time, place, or manner of voting,” thereby Statutorily codifying the right to vote as a right of US citizenship. We at The Future - Today & Tomorrow recommend adding that subsection (a) should be amended to include the following verbiage “and every Individual State, District and Territorial office” after Federal Office to further define the right to vote as a right of citizenship within State, District, Local and Territorial elections. The Right to Vote Act by itself is generational change to Constitutional Rights for American Citizens. It sets out two separate Statutorily guaranteed Citizen rights: (1) the right to vote and (2) the right to have that vote counted.?Formalizing the affirmative linkage of voting as a right of Citizenship is allowable per our assessment under the following Constitutional sections and Judicial Precedents:

·??????? The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 8 Clause 18)

·??????? Privileges and Immunities Clause and Equal Protections Clause under the 14th Amendment

·??????? City of Rome v. United States,?No. 78-1840[4] the Court read the scope of Congress's remedial powers under Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment to parallel similar reasoning under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

·??????? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field dissent in the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 - The Constitutional Revolution Interpretation, has the most far-reaching interpretations of the rest of 14th Amendment’s Section 1’s provisions. In the form Justice Field gave it in early post-Reconstruction decisions, the amendment protects all “the fundamental rights, privileges, and immunities which belong to [a person] as a freeman and free citizen” (Slaughterhouse). Thus, when Field’s reading of the privileges or immunities provisions was rejected by the court majority, he found the same protections to be contained in the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. The implications of this expansive view for the grant of legislative power to Congress in Section 5 are equally immense. Congress is seen to have more or less plenary power to act to protect the basic rights identified in the amendment.

While a Constitutional Amendment to further codify voting rights as a right of citizenship, the timeline to enact a new Constitutional Amendment allows for the continuing discrimination of voting rights as a grant of the State you live in. We can still move the Constitutional amendment path but the statutory path will provide immediate relief for every American citizen now.

The Right to Vote Act provides voters not just the right to vote, but a guaranteed, enforceable right to have their votes count. The new bill states plainly: “Every citizen of legal voting age shall have the right to vote and have one’s vote counted.” The bill defines that right as follows:

“…all actions necessary to have a vote included in the appropriate totals of votes cast with respect to candidates for public office for which votes are received in an election and reflected in the certified vote totals by any government responsible for tallying or certifying the results of elections for Federal office.”

That's one of the blessings of establishing a citizenship right to vote versus the offensive MAGA Dictatorship Republican driven Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would have required new voting registrant applicants to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The SAVE Act does nothing to enable or protect the rights of 245,741,673 American voting eligible citizens to vote, but it can be used to further restrict the ability of the 245,741,673 American voting eligible citizens to legally vote in elections going forward. The complete and utter opposition by the MAGA Dictatorship Republican party is replete with purposeful lies and misleading statements.

1. They imply that voting rights are protected for Citizens and additional actions by Congress are unnecessary.
2. They will state that no State Legislature or MAGA Trump endorsed Secretary of State, Governor or Election related official will actually be able to substitute their will or Trump’s mandated will to overthrow an election result that they don’t accept.
3. They will tell you that no efforts to restrict eligible citizens from voting, regardless of who they vote for, so there no need to standardize voting access across the country, it will open up opportunities for fraud or “takeover” State elections.

Not one of these cited statements is true. To this day the language of the Constitution does not provide an affirmative, unassailable guarantee that all U.S. citizens of legal voting age will be able to vote. Instead, current federal constitutional protections for voting are framed in the negative—e.g., protection against denial of the right to vote based on certain characteristics, such as race, gender, and age. In 2024, as it has been since 1788, America’s democracy and Citizens’ ability to register and cast a ballot that counts varies significantly, depending on which state they call home. This is the corruptible nature of America’s fragile governing experiment, it hinges on people relying on norms, customs and civil behavior vs. codified Statutory laws that requires all Citizens to be treated equally regarding their right to vote, regardless of the State, District or Territory they reside in.

Interestingly, our northern neighbor, Canada, has a Provision in their Charter of Rights and Freedoms (their version of our Constitution) that guarantees the right to vote as a right of citizenship (Section 3 – Democratic rights: 3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein)[5], but not the United States of America. Additionally interesting, the Right to Vote Act of 2021 & 15 similar bills[6] that have been introduced in Congress to affirm the Right to Vote as a Citizenship right since at least 1977, only H.J.Res.898 — 95th Congress (1977-1978) has ever had a Republican Co-Sponsor. Democrats, Independents, 3rd party officials and Non-MAGA Anti-Appeasement Republicans must move this up in the public education and messaging strategy. They also need to challenge the “pro-citizen only voting” lies of the MAGA Dictatorship Republicans & their Media, because for 43 of the past 45 years, the Republican Party has resisted the actual legislative action to formally link voting to Citizenship. It’s impossible to be for “restoring Citizens confidence in voting” and fighting to prevent permanently linking voting to Citizenship.

Should the Right to Vote Act be introduced as a separate standalone legislative bill versus being included in a broader voting rights legislation package????

Yes it should. The rest of the provisions of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act are important and must be passed, yet having the Right to Vote Act as a standalone bill improves its chances of passage and it will provide stronger legal foundation to combat voting discrimination and disparities in voting access because the right to vote will no longer be a grant of the State, it will be a right of citizenship that travels State by State, while opening up other voting expansion opportunities for Citizens disenfranchised in D.C. and the American Territories. ?

Separate of the Right to Vote Act, the remainder of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act has critical provisions that would make voting access consistent for all Citizens in every State. Similar to other Constitutionally guaranteed rights that don’t change when you travel or move between the 50 States, District of Columbia and US Territories, these key provisions (listed below) that we are required to ensure that all legal American Citizens have portable access to voting and that the administration of elections are not discriminatory (with commentary notes):?

Freedom to Vote provisions - voting access (all legal American Citizens having equal access in their State of residence):

• Election Day as a federal holiday.
• Online, automatic, and same-day voter registration.
• A minimum of 15 days of early voting, including during at least two weekends.
• No-excuse mail voting with ample access to ballot drop boxes and online ballot tracking, in addition to streamlined election mail delivery by the US Postal Service.
• States would need to accept a wide range of forms of non-photographic identification in places where ID is required to vote (expands the application nationally and functionality of voter ID).
• Counting eligible votes on provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct (pro legal citizen voting provision).
• Restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people convicted of felonies (pro legal citizen voting provision).
• Imposes stricter regulations on voter list maintenance that make it harder for states to remove eligible voters from the rolls (pro legal citizen voting provision).
• More protections and resources to serve voters with disabilities and overseas/military voters (pro legal citizen voting provision).
• Greater federal protections and oversight for voting in US territories.
• Improving voter registration resources and outreach, in addition to reauthorizing and strengthening the US Election Assistance Commission.

Freedom to Vote provisions - election administration and redistricting:

• Prohibits partisan gerrymandering by requiring states to use certain criteria when drawing new congressional districts (further codifies the Warren Court ruling in Baker v. Carr, the principle of one person one vote).
• Requires states to use voter-verifiable paper ballots and conduct post-election audits (actual election auditing by non-affiliated parties).
• Gives cybersecurity grants to states and directs the EAC to strengthen cybersecurity standards for voting equipment (addresses concerns raised by the Radical Trump movement’s election security lies).
• Makes interfering with voter registration a federal crime, and imposes stricter penalties against harassment, threats, and intimidation of election workers.
• Restates chain of custody requirements protecting the integrity of ballots and election materials, a provision meant to combat unofficial partisan "audits."

Provisions from the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act:

• Reverses the Supreme Court's new "guideposts" and standards from the?Brnovich?decision that?make it harder for plaintiffs to prove racial discrimination?under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
• Enshrines judicial precedent and legislative history to strengthen efforts to draw majority-minority districts under the parameters of the Voting Rights Act.
• Restores the federal preclearance regime that the Supreme Court struck down in?Shelby and creates a new coverage formula that requires states with recent histories of voting rights violations.
• Takes aim at the federal courts by requiring judges to explain their reasoning in emergency rulings they take up on the so-called shadow docket and tries to limit judges' from relying solely on the proximity to the election in deciding emergency cases on election rules, known as the?Purcell?principle.
• The Senate version of the law also includes the Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act, which provides greater federal protections for election workers against harassment and intimidation (addresses concerns raised by the MAGA Republican movement’s election poll watcher access lies).
• The Senate version further tacks on the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that strengthens voting rights and voter protections for voters in Indian Country.

Additional Statutory changes that must be addressed include:

·??????? Amending the Watergate Era statutes to include more clearly defined criminal penalties for violations beyond the civil infractions (Budget Impoundment Act).

·??????? Revise the H.R. 5314 – Protecting Our Democracy Act to institute criminal penalties to pair with the civil penalties added for the various violations of procedural norms by the Trump administration (the 117th House passed version doesn’t add criminal penalties to areas of serious violation such as the Emoluments Clause, Department of Justice Interference, disobeying Congressional Subpoenas, Hatch Act violations, etc.. The Trump years have demonstrated that defined criminal penalties maybe the best deterrent in future administrations.). ?

·??????? Codifying the ability to investigate, indict and enforce criminal and civil judgments on both the Sitting President, Vice President while in office and previous Presidents/Vice Presidents if they are found to have committed criminal or civil infractions including while in office.

·??????? Restoring Congressional Inherent Contempt procedures and include the Capitol Police Department in the functionality chain of Contempt enforcement actions.

?

There will never be a perfect law, bill, resolution, appropriations Act, ordinance, Statute or Judicial precedent. We are at the most definitive point in our collective American story. If you watched the Donald Trump MAGA Fascist Dictatorship Radicalization & Indoctrination rallies over the past four years, Trump and the speakers made the following points very clear:

1.????? Trump and the MAGA Dictatorship Republican party endorses Secretary of State, Governor, Attorney General and Local election official candidates who will only certify election results if Trump & MAGA Dictatorship Republican candidates win the popular vote & if they don’t win the majority of votes, they will overthrow the actual will of Citizens who chose Non-MAGA candidates & install MAGA Dictatorship Republican candidates.

2.????? They collectively want to indict, jail and inflict worse punishment against elected officials, voters and others who aren’t supportive of their leader Trump and who he chooses to be on his team

3.????? They will never be a part of the traditional American Constitutional Republic; they only accept an America with Donald Trump & his chosen officials in control of the country.

4.????? They don’t consider American citizens who voted for President Biden, 3rd party candidates for President or voted but skipped the Presidential contest as fellow citizens and having the same right to vote for the candidates of their own choosing.

5.????? You must believe Trump’s election lies and his actions (including illegal and immoral) as gospel or you’re a traitor to the cause.

?

The response to this can’t be

• Whataboutism (both political parties are the same),
• Frustration that the Democratic party hasn’t passed every law to fight against this MAGA Dictatorship Republican movement,
• That these words and related policies undertaken by the MAGA Dictatorship Republican movement aren’t really that bad or
• Think you will send a message to the Pro-Democracy elected officials by skipping the next election.

You can’t. There’s no time to be frustrated, no time to believe that both parties are the same or the MAGA Dictatorship Republican movement is just talking and won’t implement what they are advocating for. The threat is real and requires long-term thinking and commitment. This is the most important step in the fight, the hill where we must make our stand. Codifying voting as a right of Citizenship provides the strongest buffer to the American Pro-Dictatorship movement. Fixing the flawed judicial decisions, ambiguity of verbiage in our Constitution and resisting the desire to dismiss the Anti-Democracy desires of fellow Americans is bolstered by forging the permanent linkage of Citizenship and Voting as a right of Citizenship.

This is the most worthwhile fight and must be rallied to by all Americans who believe in our Constitutional Republic with the Representative Democracy form of Government we share. Ensuring that Citizenship affords the same rights for both Pro-Democracy, Pro-Dictatorship and I don’t care American Citizens requires fixing this mortal wound to our Country, the wound that has been open and untreated since the 1787 Constitutional Convention and adoption of our Constitution. Voting must be a Statutorily and Constitutionally guaranteed right of Citizenship, not a second class right provided for by individual States.

[1] https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/greene-republican-red-states-votes-b2286949.html

[1] JANUARY 12, 2022 - Rules Committee Print 117–28 Text Of The House Amendment To The Senate Amendment To H.R. 5746 [Showing the text of the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act] https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR5746EAS-RCP117-28.pdf

[2] H.R. 5746 Subtitle E—Judicial Protection of the Right to Vote and Non-partisan Vote Tabulation Part 1—Right To Vote Act & S. 2615 the ‘‘Right to Vote Act’’ August 4, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s2615/BILLS-117s2615is.pdf

[3] Trump's First 2022 Rally Pushes Allies Who Could Help Him Steal the White House - https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/01/trump-florence-arizona/; MAGA hats and QAnon: Inside Trump’s first rally of 2022 - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/16/trump-first-rally-2022-maga-527206; Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun - The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/

[4] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/446/156.html

[5] https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art3.html#:~:text=Provision,be%20qualified%20for%20membership%20therein.

[6] https://www.congress.gov/search?q=%7B%22source%22%3A%22legislation%22%2C%22search%22%3A%22Right+to+Vote%22%2C%22subject%22%3A%22Government+Operations+and+Politics%22%7D&pageSize=250&page=1