Does everyone in the US get to vote? What progressive changes have been made in terms of voting? What regressive changes have been made? What or who is next in terms of enfranchisement? Should we lower the age, challenge state restrictions, or something else?
13 Comments
Adam Buell
10/31/2018 10:20:54 am
In the United States, throughout the years, the right to vote has been extended to all people of voting age. To be eligible to vote in the US, you must be a citizen, registered to vote and be over the age of 18. However, some changes have been made throughout the past 145 years. Starting in 1870, African Americans were allowed to vote, followed by women in 1920. Then, in 1924, Native Americans were given citizenship and the right to vote, then residents of Washington DC were permitted to vote in Federal Elections. Then later on, poll taxes, grandfather clauses and then the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. However, there have been some issues within voting, such as the need for photo ID, which many people don’t have, and the decreasing presence of early voting and the law made to disallow convicted felons to vote. Next, on the list for changes of voting, in my opinion, is the further making the voting process easier, by letting everyone become voting eligible when they turn 18, and disbanding the registration process.
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Courtney
10/31/2018 10:26:04 am
I agree with you on changing the registration process. The registration process seems extremely tough, even for some that have lived here forever. By letting everyone available to vote at 18, the voter turnout may be much different and possibly better.
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Courtney
10/31/2018 10:23:37 am
Everyone in the United States has to meet certain standards. You have to be a U.S. citizen (either born or by naturalization), you have to meet your own residency requirements in your state. You have to be 18 years old (though some states allow 17 years old to vote in the primaries or register to vote if they will be 18 before the actual general election.) For progressive changes, voting was changed to be private and secret. The 15th amendment eliminated the race of the voters. In the 19th amendment, women received the right to vote. Then, for regressive changes, in the 26th amendment, the minimum age requirement was dropped from 21 to 18 years of age. Enfranchisement should allow criminals to vote, ex criminals. It doesn’t make sense to me that though they have done their time in jail, they still aren’t able to vote for their “free future.” I don’t think we should lower the age, if we lowered it to 16 that would be juniors in high school voting. I don’t believe they have enough knowledge to help “shape our future.”
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Nathan
10/31/2018 10:47:32 am
I do not agree with your standpoint on giving criminals the right to vote. I believe that they could potentially push this country the wrong way if they are able to vote since they have clearly done something wrong in the past. I also disagree on the 16 year olds not being able to vote, I believe that maybe we need to educate young people early in voting aspects and increase younger voting turnout.
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Nathan
10/31/2018 10:35:28 am
Everyone who is a U.S. citizen and is registered to vote is able to vote in elections. One progressive change in voting could be the ability to vote early in all 50 states. Another could be the ability to register to vote slightly before the citizen is 18 so that the time is not prolonged after they turn 18 for the registration to go through. Some states have made it harder for people to do early voting such as needed an excuse to do so. Some states require a government identification card that only 1 in 10 of every U.S. citizen usually have. 16 year olds could be next in terms of enfranchisement to increase youth voter turnout possibly. I believe that state restrictions should be challenged in certain ways such as identification cards and i believe that changing the voting age to 16 could potentially help with youth voter turnout.
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Landon
10/31/2018 10:46:41 am
I think that the wording in your second sentence is confusing because all 50 states have allowed early voting. By saying "could be", you are saying that that is something that should happen in the future.
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Anna Pittman
10/31/2018 08:05:44 pm
By changing the voting age to 16 kids would just vote who their parents would vote for. Kids don't care about elections, they can be educated early but they don't pay attention to it. Also, in Virginia a 16 year old does not usually have a valid ID until they get a hard copy of their drivers license which sometimes doesn't happen until up to 9 months- 12 months of getting their license.
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Landon
10/31/2018 10:42:32 am
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McKay Shockley
10/31/2018 10:47:19 am
I agree with you Landon. I feel like the younger one is, the less they know about politics and what it does for the country. I also think it would be a good idea to be automatically registered at 18, it would be less of a hassle when one goes to register to vote and we could follow other countries' footsteps.
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McKay Shockley
10/31/2018 10:44:46 am
Most aspects to voting in the United States has become a lot easier through the past couple decades. Not everyone in the U.S. is allowed to vote; immigrants, refugees, and people who are not U.S. citizens are not allowed to vote. Some progressive changes that were made in terms of voting were that now everyone in the United States can vote if they wish to. Certain amendments were made in the early 1900’s to ensure that everyone had the right to vote; the 15th amendment gave African-American men the right to vote and the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote. The voting process in general has also become easier. Since everyone is now allowed to vote, there’s no discrimination at the polls. The voting process has also transitioned from being all paper and spending time counting all votes to becoming electronic. There are some regressive changes that have been made to the voting process; some states have specific rules that limits certain people from voting. In Alabama, California, Hawaii, and in other states, one cannot be convicted of a felony or cannot be incarcerated because of a felon. One also has to be in a good mental state or in a positive mental state of mind in order to vote in states such as Iowa, Kentucky and Montana (along with a couple other states). In terms of enfranchisement, some people are debating that the voting age should be lowered to 16; people think that 16 year olds have good reason for being allowed to vote. Some of these reasons include that young people make good voters, if places lowered the voting age to 16 then the voter turnout would be better and we would get different views on certain issues. Another reason being that 16 year olds have responsibilities like an adult, though they’re not treated like one; most 16 year olds have jobs (that at times contribute to financial help at home), some have to take care of ailing family members, etc.
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Doris
12/20/2018 09:24:53 pm
i agree with you
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Anna Pittman
10/31/2018 08:02:15 pm
In order to be eligible to vote in the United States, a person must be 18 years of age, a United States citizen, and be registered to vote. In the United States there have been many changes in terms of who is allowed to vote. It used to be that only white men were allowed to vote, but in the 1800’s African Americans were allowed to vote, followed by women in the 1920’s. The voting age should not be lowered. When a person turns 18, they are legally an adult, and legally free. Parents already influence their children enough growing up, so lowering the voting age any lower which cause more influencing instead of giving the child freedom to vote for whoever they would like to vote for. Someone could argue that lowering the voting age could influence voter turnout, but I do not think it would.
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doris
12/20/2018 09:24:29 pm
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