With so many happenings going on in our country and world, it was difficult to narrow down on a topic that I felt that I needed to get particularly aware about. I chose a current event article that was related to a topic that has very recently come to my attention as an important topic. That topic is about voting rights, with elections being so important, I felt that it would benefit everyone if I meditated and shared my findings about this certain article. In this paper I will share with you a summary about the article, my reaction to the article, and the connection my article has with federal government. My article is titled, “Disabled And Fighting For The Right To Vote.” The author of my article is Pam Fessler and the article was posted
The one’s I will mention are several federal laws that protect disabled persons’ right to vote. The acts that are relevant are Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).The ADA is, “a federal civil rights law that provides protections to people with disabilities that are similar to protections provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. Title II of the ADA requires state and local governments (“public entities”) to ensure that people with disabilities have a full and equal opportunity to vote.” (Americans With Disabilities Act (1990)) The ADA is meant to protect people with disabilities from being discriminated about being able to vote. The next one is the VRA which “requires election officials to allow a voter who is blind or has another disability to receive assistance from a person of the voter’s choice (other than the voter's employer or its agent or an officer or agent of the voter's union). The VRA also prohibits conditioning the right to vote on a citizen being able to read or write, attaining a particular level of education, or passing an interpretation test.” (Voting Rights Act (1965)) This should make it so that disabled people should not be made to “prove” their competence or ask questions about government, like the article says that disabled people are sometimes asked to answer, because it violates the VRA
elections is debatable—and the non-inclusiveness of early American elections undeniable— the Constitution unequivocally establishes regular elections for seats in the House of Representatives and for the executive office (articles I and II respectively), a key component of Poloni-Staudinger and Wolf’s definition of liberal democracy (35). Moreover, the inclusion of a series of individual rights appended to the Constitution (U.S. Const. ams. 1-10) buttresses Constitutional protection of individual civil rights and civil liberties, two popular protections imperative for any state seeking the designation liberal
The United States of America is often touted as the guiding beacon of democracy for the entirety of the modern world. In spite of this tremendous responsibility the political system of the United States retains some aspects which upon examination appear to be significantly undemocratic. Perhaps the most perplexing and oft misunderstood of these establishments is the process of electing the president and the institution known as the Electoral College. The puzzle of the Electoral College presents the American people with a unique conundrum as the mark of any true democracy is the citizens’ ability to elect their own ruling officials. Unfortunately, the Electoral College system dilutes this essential capacity by introducing an election by
Right of Citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
The issue of voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been contested throughout United States
Landy, Marc and Sidney M. Milkis. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Prior to the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution the only citizens of Pennsylvania that were aloud to vote were wealthy men. Wealthy men, not just wealthy white men, all men with a significant amount of money and land were permitted to vote. When poor citizens began to have the right to vote as well is when the shift from class based discrimination changed to racial discrimination. In the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution Article three stated “In elections by the citizens, every freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state two years next before the election, and within that time paid a state or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, shall enjoy the rights of an elector…” Depending
Women were not allowed to vote in the nineteenth century. This was mainly due to opposing views sweeping America at that time, which were pushed forward by two well known political arguments-a report from the Senate's Committee on Priviledges and Elections and an address by Isabella Beecher Hooker. In 1878, the Senate Committee wrote a response to a proposed constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote, stating the main reasons why women shouldn't be given the ability. Some of these reasons announced that female voters had no experience in political affairs, while being quite generally dependent upon the other sex and incapable of performing military duty. Without the power to enforce the laws they could create, what good
Black Americans of today need to register to vote and make use of their voting rights if they want to see a change to the current state of democracy. In the
The American lifestyle has always been guided by our ability to vote. This opportunity has given people voices, and have the United States of America’s citizen influence what the USA really is. However, a group of American voices have been silenced because of laws instituted by the same government that so dearly protects our natural human rights. Felons, who have paid back their debt to society, are having their voting rights permanently, or at the pitiful least, temporarily suspended. This paradoxical denial of voting rights to the felon population is wrong, because felons are American citizens, and we all deserve the right to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments averted the prejudice and discrimination that states had previously implemented against people of color, but it did not solve all issues, for all races, equally. For different races, it took different lengths of time and different measures to reach the same equality when it came to voting. And even today, there are still issues with minority representation in politics.
I believe that the single most important societal problem currently is voting right restrictions. November is quickly coming upon us, so does the right to cast our votes for whoever we believe to be the best candidate for the oval office. However, new voting right restrictions will make the voting process harder for certain groups. These laws will affect of upwards to millions of potential voters this coming election. We all have the right to vote. The government also has the right for certain groups to make that ballet harder to cast. The reason that voting right restriction is so important is because it stops numerous people from voting, a specific group of people were targeted, and the reason the law was made is wrong.
In order to completely understand how far society has come and the amount of work that still must be done, in regards to being able to exercise our voting rights, we must first understand some of the voting barriers that minorities had to face in the past. It was not until 1870 that the 15th amendment was passed, declaring it unconstitutional for an individual to be denied the right to vote based on their color, race or previous condition of servitude. However, the 15th amendment only applied to male individuals, it did not guarantee the right for women to vote. Instead female voters had to wait an additional fifty years until they were granted the privilege to vote. In 1920, the 19th amendment was finally passed, stating that regardless of gender every American citizen had the right to vote.
Throughout American history, many minority groups have encountered significant barriers to the right to vote. Traditionally, specific populations concerned with protecting their power over others have maintained tight control over this privilege. In doing so, violations of basic human rights have occurred; state and federal governments established voting restrictions based on race. Fortunately, several methods were taken for overcoming these limitations that resulted in the voting practices used today. These recent legislations that government enacted have been to benefit voters. This research paper will go in depth with the main restrictions, laid out by either the states or the government, placed on different races in America, look at the over-comings of these limitations, and get a small glance at how voting is today and the acts the government put in place to help voters have a more pleasant voting experience.
Why is it that people are so against the idea of change? Change isn’t scary or frightful. For those people who are scared of change, are the ones who make unfair laws and rules that people who are different have to follow. Like African-Americans, who had far few rights then they do today.
Landy, Marc and Sidney M. Milkis. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004.