On May 24, Hillary Clinton said that she supports amending the U.S. Constitution so that U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico may vote in the general election for president. She had previously said that she supports that idea for Guam as well. As far as is known, no one else running for president this year has expressed the same viewpoint.
There are three classes of legally competent adult U.S. citizens who are still denied full voting rights. They are (1) residents of U.S. territories; (2) felons in almost all states and ex-felons in some states; (3) members and supporters of minor parties and independent candidates. There are advocacy groups working to solve the problems of all three groups. It would be desirable if those who are concerned about each of these problems would recognize that all three groups have much in common.
The supreme irony of the ban on voting for president for U.S. citizens who live in the territories is that U.S. citizens who live in foreign countries may vote in U.S. elections, if those citizens have ever at one time lived in a U.S. state. They may leave the U.S. and continue voting by absentee ballot for decades, even though they never again set foot in the U.S. Yet if such overseas absentee voters were then to move to a U.S. territory, they would at that moment lose their voting rights.
either make Puerto Rico a state or the law should stand
how convenient for Hillary to want these votes now since she knows they would vote for her. Her talking about letting the votes count is hysterical after what she has done to Nader
Yet a fourth class of competent U.S. citizens denied voting rights are U.S. citizens who are born overseas to American parents (passport holding U.S. citizens) but who did not live in the U.S. long enough to establish residency in any one state. Sixteen states have set a precedent to allow these “children of U.S. overseas voters” (who are required to file taxes and sign up for selective service) to register and vote using their American parents’ U.S. voting residence (last legal residence) address. A lot of you people overseas for whom this is their first election will be turned away from voting this year. Most of them will have been brought up with English as a first language, going to the American school, traveling back to the U.S. on many occasions their whole life, but they cannot vote in their own country where they hold citizenship.
Richard, I meant to write “… a lot of young people…” – sorry typo!
I don’t think that Senator Clinton herself ever did anything hostile to Ralph Nader. The 2004 efforts to forcibly keep voters from voting for Ralph Nader were carried on by officials of the Democratic National Committee, especially former Congressmembers Elizabeth Holtzman and Toby Moffett. There was no attempt to keep Nader off the ballot in New York state.
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
— along with P.R. and A.V.
Sorry — NO votes for felons in jail — traitors, murderers, robbers, rapists, etc. ???
Sorry — NO votes for mentally ill folks — like most of the New Age Prez candidates — making nonstop demagogic pandering comments about A to Z subjects ???
Sorry — NO votes for folks 0 to 17 years old ???
Let’s not forget the 600,000 disenfranchised citizens of the District of Columbia. We get Presidential voting rights…but no Senators or Representatives in Congress. We have a wonderful non-voting Delegate whose allowed to scream as loud as she wants.
Independence for Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands!!!!
Susan,
Can you send me more information on this, including a list of the 16 states?
chair @ newamericanindependent.com
You make a good point. seems all the voting laws are just lots of dubble talk to manipual people, or dobble speak ( an Orwellian concept )
Hillary endorsed and 13 Hillary supporters in the DNC rules committee decided to penalize Florida and Michigan for failing to adhere to the DNC timeline by not including them. This has created a firestorm now that Hillary wants the rules changed to accommate her campaign. I think in 2012, Territories should vote and supporters of a candidate should not be making the rules.
Richard – Just to clarify, the Democrats in New York State couldn’t do anything to keep Nader off of the ballot even if they wanted to. While Nader did make the ballot under the Peace and Freedom Party, which needed to circulate petitions in order to get his name on, he was also listed as a candidate under the Independence Party. Since the IP is ballot qualified in New York State, they couldn’t challenge the petitions. The only difference between the two ballot lines was a different Vice-Presidential candidate. My guess though, is that if the IP didn’t endorse him, the Democrats would have challenged his Peace and Freedom petitions to keep him off of the ballot. Since the IP did endorse him, the issue was moot.
Actually, Nader’s other NY ballot line was the Peace and Justice Party. Peace and Freedom was still strictly a California thing in 2004, and didn’t end up giving their line to Nader.
I had heard the reason Puerto Rico, et al doesn’t vote in Federal elections is that they don’t pay federal income tax. Is this not correct?
Fred – You are correct. I typed the name of that party too fast. On the Peace & Justice Party line, Nader ended up getting 15,626 votes, or .2% of the total vote. On the Independence Party line, he got 84,247 votes, or 1.1% of the total vote. This was down from his year 2000 totals when he ran on the Green Party line. His totals for that year were 244,030 votes, or 3.6% of the total vote.