Proxy voting

“ Anne's had to be handed over by the clerk, of Peterborough notoriety, who was the friend of Catch, when a notable discovery was made, to wit, that the proxy book, as it was called, was altogether illegal, and had been so for years, as by the efflux of time the power to vote by proxy in most instances had expired, and yet this clerk had gone on year after year issuing voting papers to persons, though he must have known that they had no right to vote. We had often wondered how it happened that we could not oust the Guardians who sat for St. ”

“ Can it be doubted that congress can, by law, protect the act of voting, the place where it is done, and the man who votes from personal violence or intimidation, and the election itself from corruption or fraud? If this be so, and it is not doubted, are such powers annulled because an election for state officers is held at the same time and place? Is it any less important that the election of members of congress should be the free choice of all the electors, because state officers are to be elected at the same time? ”

“ One's vote is diluted if it is not, as it should be, of the same practical effect as everyone else's. Of course the mere fact that an election practice satisfies the constitutional requirement of "one person, one vote" does not establish that there has been no vote dilution for Voting Rights Act purposes, since that looks not merely to equality of individual votes but also to equality of minority blocs of votes. ”

“ But, sadly, the FBI never responded to my request to investigate massive voting irregularity accusations, like the video footage from Georgia that we all wished we didn’t see.
Neither has the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Postal Inspector General, the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and, saddest of all, the U.S. Department of Justice.
The right to vote is not only a constitutional right, it is also a civil right, and we must protect it. Running a fair and transparent election is not something America should run away from. ”

“ Now, Sir, I remark, in the first place, that there should be uniformity. The question, then, is, Which system shall be adopted,—open voting, or secret voting? While I am entirely satisfied that at popular elections secret voting is preferable, and that every citizen, when about to vote at any such election, has a right to the protection of secrecy, I do not see my way to the same conclusion with regard to votes in a representative capacity. Such votes do not belong to the individual, if I may so express myself, but to his constituents. ”

“ Be sure that if real trouble arose, and there was an abuse to rectify, if there were officers unmindful of their duties to rebuke, or trustees regardless of their trust to set aside, the votes cast by proxy would be as intelligently given as those of the residents immediately near the office who could attend in person. Every effort to limit the right to vote by proxy is an attempt to perpetuate power in the hands of the policy-holders resident here, which would be quite as obnoxious to sound principles as the government of companies solely by the stockholders. ”

“ It is the only enduring foundation for a republic. Not only should the law punish every violation of this principle as a crime against the integrity of the State, but any person concerned in giving or receiving any pecuniary consideration for a vote should, upon challenge, be deprived of the privilege of voting. I submit the subject to your consideration, in the hope that additional remedies may be prescribed and enforced."—The two foregoing extracts do equal credit to the head and heart of Governor Hunt; but what a picture do they portray of the effects of secret voting! ”

“ Whether the statute itself has its warrant in the Constitution is a question not necessary now to be considered. For my part, I cannot see the authority for taking out of the ballot-boxes the ballots of lawful voters and throwing them away because other voters did not vote, whatever may have been the cause of their not voting, whether they were frightened, foolish, or perverse. ”

“ Congress also finds that States and localities have eroded access to the right to vote through restrictions on the right to vote including excessively onerous voter identification requirements, burdensome voter registration procedures, voter purges, limited and unequal access to voting by mail, polling place closures, unequal distribution of election resources, and other impediments. ”

“ My personal observation in the United States and Canada had impressed me with the dangers inseparable from the election of Federal Legislatures by local majorities—sometimes by minorities—where money and influence could be employed, particularly where a line in a tariff spelt a fortune to a section of the people, in the manipulation of the floating vote. Parties may boast of their voting strength and their compactness, but their voting strength under the present system of voting is only as strong as its weakest link, discordant or discontented minorities, will permit it to be. ”

“ Under universal suffrage this influence may be far more powerful than it is under the present electoral system. Secret voting recognises only the employment of moral influence. Open voting, it is true, recognises that influence, but also, in addition thereto, the influence of intimidation, loss of social position, and all the countless evils that swell the "tyranny of the majority." The strong defy these influences, but all are not strong: hence the necessity for protecting freedom of election by means of secret voting. ”

“ In the case we have assumed the weak point lies in the unavoidable necessity of securing a majority of the popular vote from time to time. Ultimately the oligarchy would have to become strong enough to disregard this necessity; that is, to throw off the mask of democracy by abolishing popular elections. Long before this point could be reached, however, the ruling clique would probably find itself attacked by organisations of great voting power which would demand a share of the spoils of sovereignty for themselves. ”

“ There is surely no doubt today that the right to vote can be curtailed as effectively by an impermissible demarcation of an elected official's constituency as by the destruction of ballots or the refusal to permit access to the voting booth.' Memorandum for the United States as Amicus Curiae 13. While the Government was arguing there that § 5 reached a change from ward to at-large elections, its interpretation is equally germane to the boundary annexations in the present case. ”

“ So many colored people, so many white, therefore so many colored votes and so many white votes; and therefore so many Republican votes and so many Democratic votes; and if an election does not show this exact proposition, it must be necessarily the result of fraud and intimidation and the National Government must interfere. When we have established the rule that election returns must be made or corrected according to the statistics of population, then we may decide elections beforehand by the United States Census and last year's Tribune Almanac, and save ourselves the trouble of voting. ”

“ The very fact of the prosecution is at one and the same time weakness on the part of the government, and an act of unauthorized authority. It is weakness, because by it, the United States comes onto the ground of the defendant, and, at once admits voting is an United States right, because United States rights are citizens' rights. By this prosecution, the United States clearly admits that protection of the ballot is an United States duty, instead of a State duty. It is an United States duty instead of a State duty, because voting is an United States right instead of a State right. ”

“ Is the right to vote one of the privileges or immunities of citizens? I think the disfranchised ex-rebels, and the ex-state prisoners will all agree with me, that it is not only one of them, but the one without which all the others are nothing. Seek first the kingdom of the ballot, and all things else shall be given thee, is the political injunction.
Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define citizen to be a person, in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. ”

“ I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote. ”

“ An honest vote settles the Southern question, and Congress has the power to compel an honest vote, or to leave the dishonest districts without representation. I want this policy adopted, not only in the South, but in the North. No man touched or stained with fraud should be allowed to hold his seat. Send such men home, and let them stay there until sent back by honest votes. The Southern question is a Northern question, and the Republican party must settle it for all time. We must have honest elections, or the Republic must fall. Illegal voting must be considered and punished as a crime. ”

“ The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery; for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is as criminal as the proposal to take away property. ”

“ It split at approximately seventy-to-thirty percent, in favor of the proposition. The salient fact that such a vote was patently unfair to the people whom it would most directly influence—the nonvoters—seemed to escape everybody. And so the proposition became a bill, and was duly appended to the Constitution of the United States, becoming Article XXVIII.
All voting machines in the country were forthwith modified to allow only a vote of pro or con to be registered. ”

“ The majority makes clear, however, that the primary factual predicate of a vote-dilution claim is “bloc voting along racial lines” that results in majority-preferred candidates defeating minority-preferred ones. Ante, at 17; accord, Gingles, 478 U. S., at 48 (“The theoretical basis for [vote-dilution claims] is that where minority and majority voters consistently prefer different candidates, the majority, by virtue of its numerical superiority, will regularly defeat the choices of minority voters”) . ”

“ First, that honest people should not leave politics to the riff-raff. Secondly, "there ought to be a registration established, by which no man could sail under false colours, or deposit a vote at a primary election, unless he belonged to the ward, and belonged to the party to which he professed to belong." Conceive the state to which secret voting has reduced the wealthy and intelligent city of New York; absolutely, a return to open voting is considered insufficient to reach the vitals of the evil which secrecy has brought about. ”

“ Fifty years after the Voting Rights Act, there are still too many barriers to vote, and too many people trying to erect new ones. We’ve seen laws that roll back early voting, force people to jump through hoops to cast a ballot, or lead to legitimate voters being improperly purged from the rolls. Over the years, we have seen provisions specifically designed to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. In a democracy like ours, with a history like ours, that’s a disgrace. ”

“ No person shall, directly or indirectly, use, or threaten to use, force, coercion, violence, restraint, or undue influence, or inflict, or threaten to inflict, harm or damage on any person, in order to induce him to vote, or refrain from voting, for any candidate, party, or measure. No minister, priest, or officer of a church, shall otherwise than by public speech or print persuade any voter to vote or refrain from voting for any candidate, party, or measure. No person shall, by abduction, fraud, or duress, impede or prevent any voter in the free exercise of the franchise in any election. ”

“ The provisions of the Reconstruction Act required that for the adoption of the Constitution, there must be a majority of the whole number of registered voters, and taking advantage of this, the Rebels registered as many names as possible (many, it was believed, fraudulently) , and then, when the time came for voting, they not only kept away from the polls themselves, but by threats, by discharging from their employ every colored man who would vote, and by a general system of terrorism, sought to prevent as many as possible from voting. ”

“ On the other hand, secret voting is not without its disadvantages. The citizen may be surrounded by disguised adversaries. The fair-seeming dissembler he trusts may stab him at the poll. The independence given by the ballot may betray the State, and the traitors be shielded from responsibility. The secret vote also rests on a vast assumption—that of the universal paramountcy of conscience and honesty in electors—which paramountcy is as scarce as political heroism. Those who so trust the people incur the greater and ceaseless responsibility of educating them in political honour. ”

“ And the thoughts of man are widened
With the process of the suns.
In the recent movement for election reforms, four lines of advance are marked: (1) —To secure the voter, by protecting him from evil influences, as is the object of the various “corrupt practices acts” and kindred laws; by guarding him against fraud, intimidation [78] and overawing, by means of an absolutely secret ballot, as under the Australian system; and by preventing, as with voting-machines, any manipulation of ballots or count. ”