Tag Archives: voting

In Which the Vermont Supreme Court is Wrong

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Vermont’s State government enacted a law allowing non-citizens to vote in certain local elections. In particular, the law allows Montpelier and Winooski to change their charters so that non-citizens can vote in those municipalities’ elections. Suits ensued, and the matter wound up before Vermont’s Supreme Court.

That court then proceeded to rule in favor of the law, arguing in part

[W]e conclude that the statute allowing noncitizens to vote in local Montpelier elections does not violate Chapter II, § 42 because that constitutional provision does not apply to local elections.

The court, right after that claim, actually quoted that chapter and verse:

Chapter II, § 42 of the Vermont Constitution provides:
Every person of the full age of eighteen years who is a citizen of the United States, having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior, and will take the following oath or affirmation, shall be entitled to all the privileges of a voter of this state:
You solemnly swear (or affirm) that whenever you give your vote or suffrage, touching any matter that concerns the State of Vermont, you will do it so as in your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of the same, as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any person.

The court then went through a convoluted argument to claim that the text of this Chapter and Section does not say what it says.

It’s really cut and dried, and hung in the cold cellar. Only persons who are citizens and have met a couple of additional—not substitute—criteria are permitted, via the plain, obvious, and rational meaning of the State’s constitution, to vote in any election, at any level of jurisdiction, in the State.

The State’s Supreme Court…messed up.

The Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling can be read here.

Courts and State-Controlled Federal Elections

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In Moore v Harper, the Supreme Court is being called on to decide whether State courts can rearrange State elections laws—in particular, write their own Congressional district maps—as these pertain to how a State runs Federal-level elections.

It shouldn’t even be a question. Our Constitution is quite clear on the matter of who is responsible for setting the rules for Federal elections. Here’s Article I, Section 4:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof….

And only the Federal Congress can adjust those Times, Places and Manner. Not State courts, not even Federal courts.

Our Constitution and every State constitution also is clear on the place and role of the court system in our Federal and State governments. The Judiciary branches are coequal with the Legislature and Executive Branches—neither subordinate nor superior to either. Especially, the Judiciary branches are separate from the other two branches; they are not additional legislative facilities.

State courts, including State Supreme Courts, the facility at proximate case in Moore, have no role in setting or adjusting State Legislature-written Federal-level election rules for their States.

One argument that is being pushed on the Supreme Court for allowing State courts to overrule State Legislatures is “the Founders couldn’t possibly have meant no court oversight of State election laws.” This is obviously inaccurate. In the first place, what the Founders meant in our Constitution is what they actually wrote down and passed out of Convention to submit to the people to ratify.

In the second place, what We the People meant when we ratified that Constitution is that written-down, passed out of Convention, Constitution, with a single modification by us. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debate, which involved a number of folks in We the People, resulted in a commitment to pass Amendments comprising what came to be called the Bill of Rights—the first 10 Amendments—and We the People ratified those Amendments promptly out of the First Congress. None of those Amendments address in any way how an individual State conducts its Federal-level elections.

No court oversight State election laws is precisely what the Founders intended, and it’s exactly the intention of We the People.

Full stop.

Voting as a Teaching Tool

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The Boston City Council has approved a petition to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in city elections. The city council’s next move is to submit its petition to the Massachusetts legislature for enactment. It’s the council’s rationalization for the move that’s instructive.

Progressive members of the City Council argued that lowering the voting age would help young people build a habit of voting and make them more likely to continue being politically engaged later in life.

And this:

When it comes to making a decision as to who’s going to represent them [16- and 17-year-olds], that has been denied to them.

This, especially, is egregiously misleading. Those children have parents representing them. Those parents vote. Those parents are the source of instruction.

Never mind, though. Voting isn’t important in choosing our political leaders. Nobody teaches American history in grade school anymore, apparently, or Civics in junior high, or Western Civilization at any age. No, voting has no importance beyond teaching children a measure of responsibility, because schools also seem to lack any other tools for teaching them ethics (Aristotle, anyone?) or morality (Aesop, or religion, maybe?).

Sure.

A Deliberate Move by the Progressive-Democratic Party

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…against American citizenship and American citizens.

The Progressive-Democratic Party-backed Washington, DC, city council voted 12-1 (!) to allow anyone resident in the city for at least 30 days to vote in city elections. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) didn’t have the courage to take an open position, one way or the other, on the bill; she allowed it to become the law of the city by simply not signing it. The new city law is so broadly written that illegal aliens and foreign college students would be able to vote, and

There’s nothing in this measure to prevent employees at embassies of governments that are openly hostile to the United States from casting ballots.

Now, courtesy of Bowser and her city council, anyone in the Russian, or the PRC, or the Venezuelan, or the… embassies can vote to choose the city’s elected officials up to and including the Mayor. To hell with what American citizen voters resident in the city want or vote for (or against).

Now the matter goes to Congress—the city being a Federal enclave—and those worthies have 30 days to vote it down. It’ll be instructive to see whether there are enough Party politicians in each house of Congress with enough understanding of the meaning of patriotism, and especially of the meaning of “American citizen,” to strike down this bill. As The Wall Street Journal editors put it, Let’s see the roll call.

Some Corporate Values

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Recall Major League Baseball’s, Coca Cola’s, and Delta Airlines’ reactions to Georgia’s voter integrity protection law, SB202, passed last year. That law, after all, created such nasty things as

  • signature matching
  • voter ID
  • restrictions on drop boxes
  • ban on the mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms to those who did not ask for them,
  • mandatory citizenship checks

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said baseball’s decision to pull the All Star Game out of Atlanta that year, causing the loss of upwards of $70 million of revenue to Atlanta’s small and medium businesses, was the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said Georgia’s law is unacceptable and a step backwards.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said that Georgia’s law is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.

Here’s what that law, wholly unacceptable to these corporations’ values, did.

  • total turnout of early voters—both in-person and absentee—was 2,504,956, an all-time record
  • 2,288,889 total early in-person voters this year, compared to 1,890,364 early in-person voters in the 2018 midterm elections, a 17% increase
  • average wait time in [voting] lines was about two minutes in the afternoon, when a day’s voting really starts getting going
  • tracking at three minutes
  • longest on the leader board 14 minutes
  • check-in time, when you got to the front line, 47 seconds

Now we know clearly what those corporate values are: low voter turnout, great difficulty getting to a voting booth for those who are allowed to vote, voting by illegal aliens and other non-citizens.

In fine, those corporations have shown their values to be suppression of citizens’ ability to vote and diminution of the value of citizens’ votes through promotion of non-citizens’ votes.

Why would any American citizen want to do business with this kind of corporation, a corporation that so blatantly disparages what it means to be an American citizen?