General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMaybe it's time to enforce Section 2 of the 14th amendment
... Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers ... But when the right to vote .. is .. in any way abridged .. the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion ...Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
"We'll let you vote if you stand in line eleven hours -- with nobody allowed to give you food or water" clearly abridges the right. Congress should enforce the amendment
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,414 posts)Karadeniz
(22,572 posts)Is determining how many voters have been disenfranchised.
struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)How long should it take for someone to devote? Long lines are evidence of an abridged voting right. So are polling places inconvenient to many people. Such things can be measured
BComplex
(8,064 posts)That could definitely make a good case IMHO. We can always propose it en masse (news, social media) and watch republican heads explode!
I'm all for it!
hadEnuf
(2,212 posts)It should be enforced without question.
Jim__
(14,083 posts)It's worth bringing up; I'm not sure we could get it passed.
KPN
(15,650 posts)an obvious fail safe impediment to it. Ring their (GPS) Fing bells.
tikka
(762 posts)made life unbearable for any House or Senate member that defied him........
Maybe the Dems could learn something from his method to get his Repubs 100% in line with anything and everything he did and said.
Hekate
(90,793 posts)maxsolomon
(33,400 posts)But he is there now, and it's not just him.
There's plenty of room in the 14th to take significant action - including banning Trump from running for office again.
soldierant
(6,921 posts)And I'd call it "past time" - if not "way past time."
struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)ShazamIam
(2,575 posts)controlled states and remind them, that while they can conduct elections, suppressing the vote is not legal.
struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)NotASurfer
(2,154 posts)Section 2 qualifies which elections are covered:
For purposes of defining "abridged", you could suppose Congress could use the number of electoral districts of the most numerous house of the state legislature, find some kind of median value for access to voting, and count the whole number of voters in any electoral district in the list of elections above as having their right to vote abridged if the district in which they vote falls below a reasonable percentage of that median value. I can picture, in other words, ways Congress could pull it together. That said, there are 50 diverse states and you'd have to come up with something that covers everything from mail-in, to early, to in-person-day-of-election ballot access. Cite equal protection reasons, they easily apply here.
Congress would need to also define how and when statistics would need to be collected and published (if it was before the Electoral College met, for example, electors from districts where the numbers show the right to vote was abridged could see their ballot for President and VP withheld, and the Representative to Congress from that district might not be seated)
I ramble. Congress could do something clearly, if they got their act together
smb
(3,475 posts)Count any use of a provision setting aside an election result as an abridgment of all registered voters in the affected jurisdictions. (Make it a proper nuclear option, and deduct them all regardless of whether they voted for the "winner" or even bothered to cast a ballot -- the language of the amendment leaves such issues open for purposes of defining what constitutes "abridged".)
Evolve Dammit
(16,763 posts)multigraincracker
(32,715 posts)is what country was based on. If you are not allowed to vote, you should not have to pay taxes.
CaptainTruth
(6,601 posts)"the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion"
If this means the number of Representatives (in the House, of course) for a state was reduced, the state would have to be redistricted.
triron
(22,020 posts)this shit?