The exact wording of the Free and Fair Elections Amendment is currently being debated. The original version, as published in my book Call to Liberty, is as follows:
A well-regulated election, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to an audited, voter-verified, certified, paper record of the vote, shall not be infringed.
This wording appears to be too general, and since publication, certain key terms have been defined by lower courts in ways that are contrary to the intention of the amendment. Hence, new language is currently proposed as follows:
A transparent and well-regulated election, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to voter-marked ballots, visual observation of the vote count, public inspection of registration records, legal US citizenship of all voters, and an audited, certifiable electoral process, shall not be infringed.
We invite your comments, input, preferences, suggested changes here.
I found the text of the original and new amendment. (I know, "Duhhhh!") I'd suggest that you should not just say "elections." The Constitution otherwise leaves the control of elections to the states. So, the question exists as to whether you're amendment applies to elections in federal, state, or both jurisdictions.
You may also want to add something like, "Congress shall enact legislation to implement this amendment." Otherwise, it may have no authority to override what each of the states chose to do in enforcing the new language.
Interesting idea regarding Congress. Wouldn't the language you suggest, in effect, federalize elections? I'm not sure that's a good idea.
Up to now, I have felt that the states are still the best place to administer elections, but that what is missing is the criteria they are required to meet. What makes a constitutional election system? Right now, it is anything the states decide, except for voting rights issues. This amendment provides criteria which they must meet, but leaves the methods in their hands. This is one place where, on the face of it, it seems better to keep everything as close to the citizenry as possible.
That said, I am curious as to what you think would be gained by having Congress create laws related to this rather than the states?
Regarding the race issue, I probably should have added a "current company excepted" to what I said earlier. And I'd suggest that even those who are not motivated by racism need to be aware that racism IS a motivation of a substantial portion of the population when they bring up the issue of immigration. And, we need to notice that despite the fact that your constitutional amendment is intended to remedy the problem of bum elections, it is inextricably tied to the immigration debate.
I'd suggest that we need to face the issue that these people are here, that they are going to stay, and that a lot more of their brothers and sisters are going to come too. Given that, they need to participate in our society as equals. The alternative is that they participate in our society as second-class citizens. As second-class citizens, they form a permanent underclass. And that underclass will become more and more restive because of their status here.
Neither I nor anyone else propose that foreign nationals who don't live here are either subject to our laws and should be allowed to vote. Nor is this a "foreign policy" issue. These people live next door to us and work next to us. You can't get more "domestic" than that.
One element of the issue of voting and citizenship is whether the amendment you propose applies to federal and state elections. (I'm sorry, I can't find the complete text of the amendment right now. You might put it as a prominent page on the website.) Different rules can apply to federal and state elections. (So, ultimately, the question may be whether your amendment is reversing the existing constitutional provision that all elections are controlled by the states.)
It would be possible to let all residents to vote in local elections (meaning: city, county, and state) while not being able to vote in federal elections. Among other things, such an arrangement would allow them to participate in elections of those officials who govern them most directly while keeping them out of deciding federal citizenship issues.
The argument that "they broke the law to come here and shouldn't be rewarded for law breaking" sounds logical. It puts the immigrants in the same status as criminals who are in prison. But, the people who crossed the border without sanction are a long way from your "standard criminal." They haven't come here voluntarily. They came here because they had to in order to survive. A lot of people have the image that if we just build a big enough wall on the US-Mexico border that the problem will be solved.
But, it won't be. No matter how big we build the wall, people will still find ways over it, under it, and around it. The only thing that motivates that kind of persistence is necessity. Given that motivation, we must re-think the punitive approach as the remedy.
In any case, I know that I'm currently in the minority on the issue of "illegals" voting. Perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Let's be careful here. Racism has been an ugly and abhorrent part of American life for a long time. And some have used our laws to disenfranchise others on the basis of race. But let's not have that fact and history preclude us from having a reasoned discussion of a serious question: Who should be allowed to elect the leaders of our government? That is, who are “We the people”?
You have made a serious argument that those who live under the laws should be able to vote in elections of people who make those laws. Under this notion, residency is the determining factor. There is an intuitive sense to this notion, but does it change when the law under consideration is not about taxation, but rather about foreign policy, particularly with regard to US foreign policy vis-à-vis the country the voter is actually a citizen of? In other words, do we want citizens of a different nation electing representatives of our government who will have to make decisions regarding that nation? It seems like a serious conflict of interest to me.
While residency is a compelling argument, so is citizenship. I think we can all agree that citizens of the United States should be able to vote, no matter where they live. We can also all agree that citizens of other countries who do not live in the United States should not be allowed to vote. The question arises when we confront the phenomena of people who live here who are not citizens of the United States. They fall into two groups--those who are here by legal means, and those who broke laws in order to enter the country. I’d like to hear other input, but I tend to lean toward citizenship as the proper standard if a people are to be self-governing and sovereign.
I continue to be disapointed that this does not address the other major problem with elections and that is, is the vote cast being done once and by a citizen? I appreciate Tony's effort, but this whole effort looses credibility, by not taken on what I consider an even bigger problem. He says this is bi-partisian, but it looks like a way to address why Gore did not win Florida. If he really wants to have accurate voting the ammendment needs to be comprehensive, addressing more than just the flaws in our system Democrats have claimed issues with. We have had major problems with non residents voting, but it seems that in Minnesota many Democrats want illegals to vote, I suspect they know it improves their chances of winning. You just can't have it one way and pose this as a bipartisian effort. I have no problem with the first part of amendment, but that really addresses just the smaller part of the vote accuracy question.
I take this issue quite seriously, and would welcome input on how to address it specifically. The current wording attempts to address it through the clauses on public inspection of registration records and on the issue of certifiability of the process. My sense is that these two standards would suffice to ensure that only citizens are voting. A certifiable process means that these assurances are made far upstream during the registration process, and certified at that time to be accurate. Public inspection of the records and thorough, detailed audits are also designed to provide visibility into the registration process all the way back though citizenship, if necessary. These provisions ought to enable us to control who is voting.
Again, I really welcome any input you may have on this. What wording or clause would you consider to try to get at this?
The more I read this, I think it is a great idea. Bottom line after each ellection, the ballots could be scanned in a data base, then posted on the web, so everyone can see. The ballots of course would not have the voters name on them. However, when you vote they cross your name off a list, and most likely add those that regestiered at the poll to the list. Consequently, they have a list of who voted in that election, and that information could also be posted.
My quess all this information is public anyway, but making it more accesable through web technology will be the key to more accurate ellections.
Perhaps the amendment could be worded more simply to reflect this. Which would be something like,
"the public has the right to a transparent ellection process to include easy access of public voting records, via the best possible and reasonable means available for this purpose. All voters must be US citizens and legally elligible"
Having the web based posting would go a long way in fixing our problem. Sort of a fredom of information act for voting, but quicker access, because it does not have to be requested.
This is the kind of thing I was thinking. Public inspection is the key, and so is the upstream verification of voter rolls, and so forth.
In wording a Constitutional Amendment, I think it needs to follow one or more of the traditions in that language. What I see that is new in the language you offer is the clear stipulation of US citizenship and legal eligibility. I will contemplate how to handle that suggestion carefully.
A note: Reasonable people can have a reasoned discussion about tough issues if we approach it seriously. I appreciate your thoughtfulness here.
Regarding the two versions of the "Free and Fair Elections" Amendment, I like the second over the first. As you point out, the courts have already ruled on what "voter-verified" means and it's not what you mean. Generally, I would suggest that it's always best to spell out what you mean and not leave much room for the courts (any court not just today's "do what your government says" court).
For what it's worth, here's what I wrote in trying to get at some of the same problems that Mr. Signorelli was addressing:
> Section 7.0 We have governmental rights to:
> 1. accurate recording and rapid and accurate counting of election votes;
(See: http://groups.msn.com/MyRepublic/art3rights.msnw)
You may be puzzled to start with "governmental rights." Don't worry about that for now. (I have a long list of rights and they are classified by type.) Note that I am taking a different approach to getting better elections than you are. (That does NOT mean that you are wrong or that my way's better.) What I am getting to in my draft, I think, is the ultimate issue of wanting the recording to be accurate and the counting to be accurate too. What your approach does, I think, is specify the mechanics intended to achieve the accuracy in recording and counting. I think that your mechanics would be required to ensure accuracy in recording and counting. But my way states the ultimate principle rather than the mechanics. (And we do have to allow for there perhaps being other methods, not thought of yet, to ensure accuracy and we don't want the mechanics locked down in a constitutional amendment.
One of the things that I find interesting in the dispute regarding the lack of voter-verified ballots in some of the current electronic voting system, is that we're coming off a generation of election equipment that didn't provide voter verification either. I'm talking about the old lever-action voting machines. Each voter pulled down the levers and presumed that the clock-work like guts of the machine did, in fact record their ballots. But, in reality there was no more reason, and perhaps less reason, to believe that those machines were adding things up correctly than some of the electronic machines now. After all, if a lever or gear in the guts became jammed, nobody might know until the end of the day when there might be a tremendous difference in total voters and total votes cast. Yet, somehow, I don't think that anyone worried about it. (It may just be testimony to the times we live in now.)
From my perspective, the first version is more like your attempt to delineate these rights, and I think the two suffer from the same problem. Here's what I mean:
Is "accurate recording and rapid and accurate counting of election votes" any more immune to misinterpretation than "audited, voter-verified, certified, paper record of the vote"? There is nothing to say that a vote counted by hidden and inaccessible software is not, indeed, "accurately" counted or recorded. The word seems to me self-evident--we ought to be able to expect accuracy. But if a court deems such machines and systems "accurate" or "voter-verified" then we no longer have a meaningful standard. Call it the legal process or judicial activism, the result is the same: A lot of work to pass an amendment that results in no real benefit to the body politic.
Several people have asked me to insert the requirement for "paper" ballots, but I think the amendment is stronger if we simply delineate standards. I do not want to see technological advances become unavailable to us due to an amendment, but I also think the standards need to be clear.
Finally, there are some significant differences between the old lever machines and electronic voting machines. First, there was a mechanical rather than an electronic mechanism inside. Most citizen election judges were able to see and understand the workings therein. They could, in fact, verify that the machines were working properly. Second, the machines did create a paper trail--they actually punched a huge roll of paper which could be removed and recounted if necessary. Granted, they could malfunction, but the citizenry never expressed much uneasiness about this. Third, the vote tallies perhaps could be manipulated, but not in the way that electronic votes can be created and disappear in mere seconds using only a pocket sized memory card. These three features differentiate the old machines from the new in ways that go beyond the sense that we are in a more suspicious age. The differences were real, and they endgendered different kinds of reactions in the people.
Tony's comment about amendment wording following the type of wording we saw in the past is understandable. However, I frankly have a hard time understanding what he is saying with both the initial and revised wording. Perhaps he is trying to please the old school too much. I think we need to use contemporay language, it does not have to be exactly what I have put. But using terms like legal citizen of the US is something we all understand. I think it will increase the clairity and the support of this amendment.
I have replies to a couple of things.
On the old lever-action voting machines, you're right that no one ever seemed to wonder whether things were being totaled right. After seeing the guts of the machines (as I did several times when I was an election judge in Iowa) might start anyone thinking as I did. They were oh-so-simple from the front. But, from the back, you could see that it was as complicated as a wrist watch. I was always told that the machines were set mechanically so that if something that was set to be counted didn't count, the whole machine would jam. And that would ensure that a technician would come and fix it. However, I never saw that capability demonstrated. (One could always tell whether something was set to be counted because the levers could be moved only on the positions being counted. Stated in the reverse, the levers wouldn't move when no votes were being counted at a position -- as was almost always the case at the bottom and right of the face of the front of the voting machine.)
But, I don't think that you're right about the paper role recording punches. Yes, there is a paper role but its sole purpose is to record write-in votes. (And, as an election judge, I can testify that "Mickey Mouse" always got the most write-ins.) I think that the Machines in Minnesota were the same that I saw in Iowa.
On the wording of the amendment, perhaps we're both missing something. The ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone gets to vote and that the vote counts. Presently, I suspect that the most frequent problem is not someone gaming the electronic voting machines but people not being able to vote at all. Thus, you have states that constantly purge the voter roles of "criminals" or people who have "moved." Both seem to be transparent efforts to purge the poor from voting. (Thus, anyone with a name like that of a convicted criminal is removed.)
The 15th Amendment is not effective to deal with the problems of voting. It prohibits denial of the right to vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." While important, there are all sorts of other reasons that the right to vote is being denied. Unfortunately, the biggest is probably the politics of trying to cut out opposition votes.
Maybe what's needed is something that makes it clear that anyone who does anything to deny someone's effective vote does so at his or her high peril. A person presenting himself or herself to vote must ALWAYS be allowed to vote. (Yes, the vote could be sequestered to see later whether the person was entitled to vote.)
Perhaps better language would be along the lines of, "The right to an effective vote in any election shall not be infringed. Congress has the right to enforce this amendment by legislation." (The latter is necessary because the Constitution presently leaves voting in the hands of the states.)
On the question of whether "citizens" alone can vote, I'm fairly radical on that one. (This idea was brought up by the other "Steve" who has commented here.) I would NOT restrict the right to vote just to citizens. I feel that if you're here, then you can vote. Everyone must comply with the laws, after all, and that gives everyone the right to participate in electing those who write the laws. However, I also recognize that mine is probably the minority view on that issue. So, I'd go along with restricting voting to citizens as long as that's not used as a ruse to deny opponents the right to vote.
For now, I will give in on the old levers. It sounds like you have more first hand knowledge than I do--mine coming more from research and reading than actual experience. I note that they could have engendered similar concerns among the populace about votes not being counted properly, but they did not.
I'm not so sure about the ultimate goal you cite: "The ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone gets to vote and that the vote counts." This may be the source of our differences. To me, the ultimate goal is to restore the public consensus that whoever is announced to have won the election actually won. Right now, such a consensus is eroding, and I hold that such erosion is eating at the very foundations of democracy.
You see, I believe this is much bigger than voting rights of individuals. For example, it is possible that everyone who should vote does and the votes are counted, but because we do not have a transparent election system, the public consensus does not develop. The citizenry is left to "trust the specialists," which has been done in other nations operating under governmental systems that are anything but democracy.
Finally, you are right that I would disagree about citizenship requirements. Currently in Minnesota, one must swear and oath regarding one's citizenship in order to register to vote. Our elections, I think, should not be susceptible to sway of temporary residents from foreign countries any more than they should be swayed by, say, bus loads of people from Wisconsin voting in a St. Paul city election. It just make sense that self-government defines the "self" as the citizens of the nation.
I'd suggest that you are confusing a requirement of "citizenship" with a requirement of "residency." I have no problem with a requirement of residency. People from Wisconsin just can't come over here and vote in our elections and vice versa. So, having to show that you live in the jurisdiction (with a driver's license, a utility bill, or a voucher) must continue.
I maintain that my position is still logical that if one is subject to the laws of the jurisdiction then one is entitled to pick those who make the laws.
I'd also point out that the so-called "illegals" pay taxes here. If they work here, income tax is withheld. If they own real property here, then they pay property taxes. And, on income, they even have FICA withheld yet they cannot ever use social security. And, you will recall the revolutionary slogan of "No taxation without representation."
The citizens of the United States, although a "nation of immigrants" has always exhibited an animus against whoever immigrated after they or their ancestors immigrated. The hostility to immigrants from Mexico is but the latest exhibition of that view. The people of Mexico who come here are not coming voluntarily. They are coming because they have to to survive. We can build all the walls between us and Mexico that the neocons want and those people will still find ways over, through, and around the fences. The demands for a wall are based on racism and not on any practical realization of why the immigration is happening. In thinking about the issue, it's necessary for everyone to decide to not be racist and decide on logic alone. And, I'd urge that if one is subject to our laws then one is entitled to select those who make those laws.
New Suggested Text of a Fair Election amendment is as follows:
__________________ AMENDMENT
SECTION 1. Voting and accurate election returns, being necessary to republican government, the right of citizens of the United States to accurate determination of residence to determine the voting venue; to voting in that venue; to permanently-recorded, voter-marked, secret ballots, to observation of the vote count, to public inspection of registration records, and an audit for count accuracy shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State.
SECTION 2. The Congress and the several states shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This draft tries to do what I understand you want (even though I disagree with parts of it).
You need to say whether the amendment affects the feds, the states, or both, and who has the power to enforce the amendment. The text would give Congress and the states concurrent power -- with fed law prevailing if there is a conflict.
I like the declaration of purpose following the second amendment. That would help construction by stating both intent and the specific requirements.
Note that I think that voting is not part of a question of "security" as that term usually means but really for a republican government -- which is what we supposedly are.
I've augmented the list of requirements on elections so that I think all areas where there are current abuses are covered.
I'd also suggest that the issue of ensuring proper voting registration must be covered since disqualification because you've moved is where most of the games are currently being played.