A Constitutional Right To Vote

Kevin Drum has grabbed onto an interesting idea – a constitutional right to vote.  At present, all male citizens have to register for the Selective Service when they turn 18 and, perhaps soon, women will as well. When they register, they would automatically be registered to vote and could receive some sort of voting card at the same time.  New citizens would also automatically be registered and receive their voting card when they get sworn in as citizens.  And convicted felons would regain their right to vote after they have served their sentence.  A voting card and a proof of address would be enough to allow someone to vote in any election they were eligible. And it would be up to the government to maintain the list of people who can not vote, rather than putting the burden on the voters to prove they are eligible.

I happen to believe that the current Republican strategy of voting restrictions and partisan gerrymandering will come back to haunt them very soon.  Eventually, the demographics in each of these restrictive states will put Democrats back in power and the restrictions will be lifted and the districts redrawn, unleashing a flood of “new” voters for Democrats and pushing Republicans further into minority status . In the interim, nothing would make it clearer to all those disenfranchised voters and voters who struggle with the hassle of properly registering under these restrictive policies that the Democratic party stands with them than to be boldly out there demanding this constitutional right to vote for every citizen.  It would be interesting to see how Republicans could oppose that idea.