What does the Constitution say about the right to vote? The fifteenth amendment says the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The source of equal protection and substantive due process is also the text of the Constitution, but not so clearly stated. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment states: nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
While the due process clause, as it is known, speaks of due process of law, the Supreme Court interprets substantive content, or rights, from the due process clause. Substantive due process usually involves judicial recognition of a right not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but nonetheless recognized as fundamental. The right to vote is a fundamental right (so too the right of privacy, the right to travel and first amendment rights), but this is so not just because of the importance of voting to our form of government, or the fifteenth amendments requirements, but also because the Supreme Court has decided that substantive due process includes the right to vote.
When a government regulation affects voting rights of a U.S. citizen, in violation of substantive due process or equal protection, the U.S. Supreme Court usually applies a standard known as strict scrutiny. For example, in
Harper v. Virginia, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), the U.S. Supreme court made clear that any restrictions on voting must be viewed with close scrutiny and narrowly confined. The Court found a poll tax in violation of equal protection (the plaintiff was an individual voter), the court further stated that, as it relates to voting, classifications based on wealth, such as race, are disfavored. Therefore, charging a fee to vote constitutes invidious discrimination that violates equal protection. When it comes to voting, equal protection requires that once a state has provided the right to vote to a person, that right must be granted equally.
In another equal protection voting case,
Kramer v. Union School District, 395 U.S. 621 (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a New York law excluding school district residents otherwise eligible to vote in state and federal elections from voting in school district elections. In Kramer, individuals were allowed to vote ONLY if they owned, or leased, taxable real property within the district, or were parents with children enrolled in the local public schools. The court struck down the New York law by applying strict scrutiny, and explained that when a legislature denies the right to vote to some residents, the court will carefully scrutinize the legislation, applying the strict scrutiny test. The strict scrutiny test asks whether the exclusion (here, exclusion of renters of real property that lived in the district and paid state taxes) is necessary to promote a compelling state interest that is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. The court disagreed that the law was narrowly tailored to achieve the States interest of only allowing those primarily interested in the school district issues to vote on the matter. The States vote restriction excluded senior citizens and others living with children or relatives; clergy, military personnel, and others who live on tax-exempt property; boarders and lodgers; parents who neither own nor lease qualifying property and whose children are too young to attend school or whose children attend private schools. Even if, said the Court, the States interest is compelling, the regulation does not narrowly limit the exclusion of voters to achieve that interest, since it excludes many eligible voters who may be keenly interested in the issue while at the same time including disinterested persons.
Other issues raised in high profile U.S. Supreme Court voting cases include denials of voting rights, limited purpose elections (e.g., exclusion of certain voters from water storage district votes), disenfranchisement of felons, voting requirements (e.g., registration deadlines, party membership and the right to vote), race-based and ancestral disenfranchisement, and one person one vote (which deals with voting district boundaries). Whenever the right to vote is in some way limited or lost, there is a potential constitutional violation.
The Fundamental Right To Vote - Law Firm Knox, Brotherton, Knox & Godfrey Attorneys Charlotte, North Carolina
