Voting Rights for the 21st Century

We encourage the participation of all Americans in the voting process. The Voting Rights Act protected the right of Americans to register to vote for a half century. Court decisions of the past six years have removed some of those protections, so that State legislatures can now make voting more difficult, and wealthy special interests can spend unlimited money to elect their friends. We support a new federal Voting Rights Act that will require proposed State legislation that restricts voting, to have Constitutional review BEFORE the restrictions take effect. We support a Constitutional amendment to make it clear that the rights of free speech and assembly are rights of INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEINGS and do not apply to artificially-created legal structures or corporations. We support the right of Congress to regulate and restrict the ability of corporate wealth to participate in the voting process.

Our principle: Voting is a Constitutional right. All American citizens who are eighteen years of age or older on Election Day, should be encouraged to vote and should not be obstructed from voting. Artificial barriers to voting, whether physical inaccessibility, inadequate polling places leading to extreme distances or overcrowding and oppressive wait times, or financial barriers involving excessive time and expense necessary to register and obtain identification documents, should be removed. Voting is a federal right. Voting procedures are State decisions, but should not restrict the federal right.

First steps.

(1) RESTORE and expand the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Overcome the Supreme Court of the United States 2013 removal of the "pre-clearance" application of Section 5, by Congressional action to adopt new amendments making Section 5 apply to ALL STATES which enact new legislation to restrict voting rights.

(2) AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION. Enact federal legislation to require, for federal elections to Congress and President, that ALL citizens be registered to vote by the age of 18, with the provision that a citizen may "opt-out" of voter registration if they choose. Since 2015, Oregon, California, West Virginia, and Vermont have made voter registration automatic when registering for a state driver license or other state identification card. Automatic registration should be extended to all citizens who will be 18 years of age or older on Election Day, in all States.

(3) EXPAND VOTE BY MAIL. Enact federal and state legislation to require, for federal elections to Congress and President, that ALL votes for federal offices be cast by mail. This procedure has been in effect in Oregon for all elections since it was adopted by statewide public initiative in 1998. EIGHTY PERCENT of registered Oregonians voted in the 2000 election for President. This procedure is also in effect in the State of Washington for all elections.

(4) ELIMINATE OBSTACLES. Until universal vote-by-mail eliminates the expense of in-person polling places, as it has in Oregon and Washington, obstacles to in-person voting should be reduced. Federal legislation should require that, for federal elections, an adequate number of polling places be provided so that thousands of voters are not required to line up at a single location and wait for hours to use their right to vote.

(5) RELIABLE, VERIFIABLE VOTE COUNTS. For federal elections, legislation should require that votes are cast in a way that leaves a physical record that cannot be hacked electronically. A secure paper record is necessary to verify the vote in the event of a recount.

(6) NO CORPORATE MONEY IN ELECTIONS. We support a Constitutional amendment to make it clear that artificial legal entities that are created by State legislatures, commonly called "corporations", are NOT "persons" within the meaning of the individual rights that are specified in the Constitution of the United States. We support appointing Justices to the Supreme court of the United States who will reverse the Supreme Court 5 to 4 decision of "Citizens United" that allowed corporations to participate in campaign finance without legal restrictions. We support full disclosure of the source of all contributions to political campaigns.