‘Whatever you can do,
Or dream you can,
Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power,
And magic
In it!’
- - Goethe

Monday, June 11, 2012

A Universal Voting Rights Amendment

The Constitution has no provision for universal voting rights, just add-on amendments prohibiting denial of voting rights based on race, gender, and age (18-20 year olds). This still makes no constitutional provision guaranteeing equal representation for Americans living abroad (just a recent statutory provision that could be repealed) and no provision for residents of DC to have equal representation. Replace this patchwork of Amendments with one universal voting rights guarantee Amendment.

If we were modeling the above proposal on the Second Amendment, we might write it like this:

"The Consent of the Governed, being necessary to the legitimacy of a free society's governance, the right of the people to vote and be represented, shall not be infringed."

However, I've been told that such phrasing is barely even English (which may say something about the Second Amendment as well).