Pam Bondi Quotes

Even after the South was defeated in the Civil War, most Southern politicians strove to keep the newly freed Blacks from voting. The vehicle they chose to attain that purpose was the concept of States’ Rights where the states were the sole determiners of who could and could not vote. The majority of the country rejected that view and the Constitution was amended to allow Black men to vote. After reconstruction Black voting in the South was curtailed substantiality by devices such as poll taxes and literacy requirements and terror and intimidation. It was not until the latter part of the 20th century that most Blacks could vote in the Southern States.

At the time, this not only was true but there were few who argued that it should be different. It was the gross abuse of the control of the elective franchise by the Southern states after Blacks had been given the right to vote and continuing into the 1960s, that the Federal Government passed the Voting Rights Act. In the election of 2000, Al Gore had won by a narrow margin as the result of decisions of the Florida Courts finding that Gore had won the state, The Supreme Court, however, overrode Florida and by a 5-4 partisan vote gave Florida and hence the election to George W. Bush. Bingham’s principle had fallen completely.

America is almost unique among nations in that the methods of elections are different in each state, but at the time even the right to vote was uniquely controlled by the states—even for Federal officials. Even in modern times individual states have controlled the right to vote in many instances. For example in some states convicted felons may not vote while in others they can.

At a Kansas State legislative hearing Kobach admitted that there only 5 cases that they had found of non-citizen voting, and 6 cases that were referred to prosecutors for alleged “double voting” (voting in Kansas and another state). The Prosecutors refused to go ahead with any of the alleged charges for lack of evidence. Mr. Kobach had a unique definition of “many, many”.

Canada’s immigration policies have tended to be more liberal than those of the United States.

In the beginning of the 21st century, many republican state legislatures attempted to change the voting laws to eliminate the possibility of voter fraud which was not a serious practical problem in America. However, a consequence—some argue indented and some argue unintended—was that it was harder for certain groups of people to meet the new requirements and therefore was a de facto voter suppression for some people such as the very elderly, the homeless, and the poor. Many of these efforts were declared unconstitutional by the courts.

What is interesting, that few people realize, is that large number of men who had never voted before, and would not be able to vote afterwards (the were not property owners for example), were allowed to vote in the ratification debate. As a result, an entire new socio-economic class was empowered and became interested in politics for the first time in history. The result was greater and wider public interest than there had been or would be for many years to come. All voting requirements had been set by the states and were still so after the Constitution was adapted and still is the current situation, although there has been a constant battle in many states to keep Blacks and other minorities from voting between the desires of the states and Federal pressure after the Civil War Constitutional amendments.