The Fragility of Voting Rights:
THE 2020 U.S. ELECTION
On July 30, 2020, when the iconic civil rights leader Representative John Lewis was laid to
rest, his final message to the American people was conveyed in a letter published in the
New York Times. It included this advice and caution: “The vote is the most powerful non-violent
change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not
guaranteed. You can lose it.” Representative Lewis knew all too well of what he spoke.
TEXT BY LINDA GELLER-SCHWARTZ
The history of voting rights in
America has been the sto-ry
of a period of expansion
of voting rights followed by
periods of backlash and re-trenchment.
The simple theory that all
citizens in a democracy should have the
right to vote, while championed as a
principle, has seldom been accepted in
practice. Rather, both major parties, at
various points of history, have operat-ed
on the premise that if you can define
the electorate by excluding some citi-zens
and including others, you can win
or maintain power and keep the “oth-er
guys” out. A view has developed in
the U.S. that access to the vote is not a
“right”, but a “privilege”. And, if it is
a privilege, it must be earned -- and it
can also be lost.
States have broad discretion
The American Constitution, specifically the
Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth
A view has
developed in the
U.S. that access
to the vote is not
a “right”,
but a “privilege”.
TEEMA
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