Right to vote

“ 'No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.' [8]
No extended discussion is required to establish that the Ohio laws before us give the two old, established parties a decided advantage over any new parties struggling for existence and thus place substantially unequal burdens on both the right to vote and the right to associate. ”

“ We must remember that if the theory of democracy is correct, the right to vote is not merely a privilege, not simply a method of meeting the needs of a particular group, and least of all a matter of recognized want or desire. ”

“ Indeed, if there were no prior convention, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least. ”

“ The right to vote is the most basic constitutive act of citizenship. Regaining the right to vote reintegrates individuals with criminal convictions into free society, helping to enhance public safety. ”

“ The right to vote is, of course, different in one respect from the other rights in the economic, social, or political field which, as indicated in the Appendix to this opinion, are under the Equal Protection Clause. The right to vote is a civil right deeply embedded in the Constitution. ”

“ Those principles apply here. For to repeat, wealth or fee paying has, in our view, no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned. ”

“ The property qualifications making a man eligible to vote should be altogether abolished and universal suffrage be introduced instead. Every adult, both male and female, should have the right to vote. ”

“ Congress finds that the Constitution of the United States grants explicit and broad authority to protect the right to vote, to regulate elections for Federal office, to prevent and remedy discrimination in voting, and to defend the Nation’s democratic process. ”

“ There is no comparable specific constitutional provision absolutely barring the States from abridging the right to vote. Consequently States have from the beginning and do now qualify the right to vote because of age, prior felony convictions, illiteracy, and various other reasons. ”

“ The candidate receiving more votes than any other must receive the office unless he is disqualified on some constitutionally permissible basis or unless, in a runoff or some other type of election, the people properly and regularly, by their votes, decide differently. 'The right to vote is too important in our free society to be stripped of judicial protection' [6] by any other interpretation of our Constitution. ”

“ So carefully guarded is the citizen's right to vote, that the constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says: "Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or any infamous crime." ”

“ Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized. ”

“ A State may add further qualifications for voting, but no State may deny the right to vote for any of the above reasons. Several States have added literacy tests for voting, and others have denied the right to vote to such as are insane or who have been convicted of crime, unless pardoned by the Governor. A few States deny suffrage to those whose taxes are delinquent. ”

“ The cause which the majority opinion serves is, on the surface, one which a person dedicated to constitutional principles could not question. At the bottom of this controversy is the right to vote protected by the Fifteenth Amendment. ”

“ Thus by disposing of the vague idea of a natural right to vote, the way is cleared for a consideration of the proper qualifications which Society should require from voters. That there are men and classes of men naturally incapable of exercising the judgment necessary to cast a ballot helpful to the community is known to all of us. ”

“ Throughout our whole union, however, and wherever free government prevails, those who abstain from the exercise of the right of suffrage authorize those who do vote to act for them in that contingency, and the absentees are as much bound under the law and the constitution, where there is no fraud or violence, by the act of the majority of those who do vote, as although all had participated in the election. Otherwise, as voting must be voluntary, self-government would be impracticable, and monarchy or despotism would remain as the only alternative. ”

“ The cherished right of people in a country like ours to vote cannot be obliterated by the use of laws like this, which leave the voting fate of a citizen to the passing whim or impulse of an individual registrar. ”

“ Surely, the right of the whole people to vote is here clearly implied. For however destructive to their happiness this government might become, a disfranchised class could neither alter nor abolish it, nor institute a new one, except by the old brute force method of insurrection and rebellion. One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one. ”

“ In short, we must be vigilant to see that our Constitution protects not just the right to cast a vote, but the right to have a vote fully serve its purpose. If the vote cast by all of those who favor a particular candidate exceeds the number cast in favor of a rival, the result is constitutionally protected § a matter of equal protection of the laws from nullification except by the voters themselves. ”

“ Here is conceded the power only to prescribe times, places and manner of holding the elections; and even with these Congress may interfere, with all excepting the mere place of choosing Senators. Thus you see, there is not the slightest permission in either section for the States to discriminate against the right of any class of citizens to vote. Surely, to regulate cannot be to annihilate! ”

“ The liberties of the people are much more closely involved when the United States is the aggressor, than when the States are aggressors.
"The Act to Enforce the right of citizens to vote," declares that CITIZENS shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all elections by the people, in any state, territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial division, &c. ”