The Tenth Circuit will hear Citizen Center v Gessler, 12-1414, on March 17, Monday, at 9 a.m. This is the case over whether the U.S. Constitution protects the right to a secret ballot. The case had originally been filed to block the practice of printing unique bar codes on ballots, so that theoretically election officials could determine how a particular voter voted. But the U.S. District Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not protect a secret ballot, so the Tenth Circuit will grapple with that as well.
One more brain dead moron case.
The SECRET BALLOT happened in the mid 1800s- about 60 years AFTER the 1787 U.S.A. Const.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot
We got the 14th amendment in 1868, but it took until 1966 for the US Supreme Court to decide that the 14th amendment means poll taxes are unconstitutional.
A poll tax discriminates on the basis of wealth.
An open ballot is not discriminatory.
The 1966 SCOTUS case was one more perversion of the 14th Amdt.
Sec. TWO of 14th Amdt was written to deal with ALL of the discriminatory stuff — at least for males.
Sorry females until the 19th Amdt.
That was because of the 24th Amendment (which made poll taxes illegal), which was ratified on Jan. 23, 1964 — 50 years ago today.
The 24th Amendment only applies to federal elections.
Yes, but federal offices are on the ballot in 90 or 95 percent of all elections. Most states find it much too expensive to hold separate elections for federal and state/local offices — e.g., there were only two state-only elections in 2013, in NJ and VA. (The major exception is local elections in small cities, which are often held in the spring.)
The 24th Amendment effectively killed the poll tax, even though it didn’t make it completely unconstitutional.