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Voting is not a constitutional right. Voting Rights Act is statutory like most of our laws.
by casefields 5y ago
Voting is not a constitutional right.
Voting Rights Act is statutory like most of our laws.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Voting is not a constitutional right. Yes it is. > Voting Rights Act is statutory like most of our laws. Constitutional rights are often enforced by legislation; Amendments articulating rights often explicitly authorize this. See, with regard to voting rights, the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments. (EDIT: also, the 14th Amendment [see Sec. 2 and 5], and, as noted in a sibling comment, the 24th Amendment. Also the 17th Amendment, though that doesn’t have a Congressional enforcement clause. Voting rights are the single most common subject of Constitutional amendments.)
- azernik 5y ago15th Amendment: 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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 19th Amendment has identical language for "on account of sex", the 24th Amendment has "by reason of failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax", the 26th Amendment has "on account of age" for 18 years and older. Like many other things in the Constitution, the constitutional text defines the general principle and the power of the federal government to enforce it, and normal legislation establishes the actual enforcement mechanisms.