Disenfranchisement
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Disenfranchisement is the act of depriving an individual or group of the right to vote. According to the National Constitution Center, "Neither the original [United States] Constitution nor the Bill of Rights nor any other provision of the Constitution expressly guarantees the right to vote." Instead, beginning in the 1960s, "the Supreme Court began to conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly protected the right to vote."[1][2][3]
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited disenfranchisement on the basis of race, and the Nineteenth Amendment prohibited disenfranchisement on the basis of sex.[4] The Twenty-Sixth Amendment established that the right to vote could not be denied to individuals aged 18 years and older. The relevant sections of these amendments are excerpted below.[5]
| “ | Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.[6] | ” |
| —Amendment XIV, Section 2 | ||
| “ | The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.[6] | ” |
| —Amendment XV, Section 1 | ||
| “ | The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. [6] | ” |
| —Amendment XIX | ||
| “ | The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.[6] | ” |
| —Amendment XXVI, Section 1 | ||
See also
External links
- Amendment XIV, United States Constitution (full text)
- Amendment XV, United States Constitution (full text)
- Amendment XIX, United States Constitution (full text)
- Amendment XXVI, United States Constitution (full text)
Footnotes
- ↑ National Constitution Center, "Common Interpretation: The Fifteenth Amendment," accessed October 27, 2020
- ↑ National Constitution Center, "The Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment," accessed February 28, 2018
- ↑ Merriam-Webster, "Disenfranchise," accessed March 28, 2014
- ↑ National Constitution Center, "Common Interpretation: The Fifteenth Amendment," accessed October 27, 2020
- ↑ National Constitution Center, "The Fifteenth Amendment," accessed February 28, 2018
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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