Article III Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution currently reads, “Every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.”
After Tuesday’s vote, the article will now read, “Only a United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.”
Doesn’t this change the meaning of the statement so much that it’s no longer true that every citizen of age who is a resident is eligible to vote? Can this new language be interpreted by courts and lawmakers such that anyone can be disenfranchised if such malicious laws can be passed in the state?
Ohhhh I see now.
“Every” says “Every member of this group has this right.”
“Only” says “Anyone who has this right must be a member of this group,” but it doesn’t say “Every member of this group has this right.” Which means that “Some members of this group might not have this right.”
Nice catch.
Yep.
It would mean that a law that passes that just appends ‘and you are male’ or ‘and you are white’ now is legally valid without requiring judicial review.
Throw in land owner and it’s just as the founding fathers intended.
Charging the last terrified rapscallion
With everything else, yeah, that tracks
Yeah it pretty shitty. Will probably be used to disenfranchise students
I voted against it
Logically, yeah—it went from “all X are Y” to “no non-X are Y”.
Oof this might be above Lemmy’s pay grade.
Doesn’t this change the meaning of the statement so much that it’s no longer true that every citizen of age who is a resident is eligible to vote?
I don’t see how it would, but maybe I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. The eligibility of the people in the article did not change. “Only” vs “Every” still includes the same group of people.
What did change was the explicit exclusion of people outside of those qualifiers. This could potentially make challenging votes of “questionable” voters that much more impactful or difficult to defend against, and maybe make adjusting the existing qualifiers harder (the only one I can really think of is age), but that depends on WI’s amendment process, which I don’t know.
What did change was the explicit exclusion of people outside of those qualifiers.
That’s not the point. Don’t focus on the logical conditions, because they have not changed.
As far as I understand it, the important change is the missing “Every”.
Before, the “every” had made this a guaranteed right. Now that is gone, and only conditions are left.
The right to vote could be taken away from some people by creating further conditions in the future.
I think op is right. A new law that says you have to own real estate to vote would have been unconstitutional before and is not now.
Ah, ok. I see that now. That sucks.
I am pretty sure those voting rights are also guaranteed by the federal constitution, so probably not
Unfortunately SCOTUS gutted the power of the federal government to enforce those guarantees based on the old provisions + republicans filibustered the democrat bill that was meant to address that. It’s as if the republicans have a plan.
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-does-the-constitution-say-about-the-right-to-vote/
“The ability of the federal government to protect voting rights, particularly for racial and ethnic minorities, has been jeopardized both by recent Supreme Court rulings and the failure of Congress to enact new voting rights legislation.”
“With the federal government and the Supreme Court unlikely to protect voting rights in a substantial way in the near future, it’s up to the states to take action to protect voting.”
And now there’s a state changing the law so that they can more easily disenfranchise voters of their chosing. Imo this is no coincidence.
Hm, worrying. I wonder what the gap might be, like what could make an adult citizen not a ‘qualified elector’
They don’t have to prove that someone is not a qualified elector to disenfranchise them, throwing up barriers to make it very hard / impossible to vote is enough. In the past the federal government could intervene if something like that happened, but that’s not really possible anymore thanks to the current scotus, so it’s up to the states.
And this state is now laying the legal groundwork: If “every” persons with xxx qualifications has the right the vote by law and new measures get implemented that make it practically impossible to vote for certain people that fit those qualifications, then those people had a right withheld from them.
If “only” persons with xxx qualifications have the right to vote by law and new measures get implemented that make it impossible to vote for certain people that fit those qualifications, then … nothing. That’s the difference between “every” and “only”. Changing the wording to “only” allows the state to legally pile on extra requirements and barriers.
Examples of groups of people that I’ve seen disenfranchised by state actions: Prisoners, felons who have done their time, college students, minorities, inner city people, military abroad. Some of these news articles will have been attempts that were not (yet) successful.
I haven’t read the full wiki article, but I expect those examples to be in here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States
“Doesn’t this change the meaning of the statement so much that it’s no longer true that every citizen of age who is a resident is eligible to vote?”
yep, especially in a country like the US where gerrymandering is still legal.
“Can this new language be interpreted by courts and lawmakers such that anyone can be disenfranchised if such malicious laws can be passed in the state?”
oh yeah, this can handily accelerate voter suppression.
Voting in the United States has always been primarily a way to protect the power of already powerful people, and secondarily a way to ensure incremental social progress continues at a pace that doesn’t make powerful people too uncomfortable.
A lot of things about the way things are structured in US democracy make more sense with that context, including this, I think.
Specifically, 70% of people both eligible and motivated to vote, voted to ensure eligibility to vote is not extended. This has happened many times throughout history, and only seems odd if we accept the fib that everyone is represented.
In the context of gerrandering, first-past-the-poll “representation”, and various other forms of disenfranchisement; it makes sense that 70% of the people allowed to actually vote, votes in favor of continuing to restrict the vote (to themselves).
The way I read it, yes they did choose to restrict the vote to themselves, but at the same time they removed the guarantee of the vote to themselves.
The guarantee they enjoyed is no longer expressed in the constitution. Or am I missing something?
no. you didn’t miss anything.
wisconsin gonna wisconsin. voted in a diaper, twice, too. i wish i could afford to leave this state.
Does this also block US citizens living abroad because by definition they don’t reside in the electoral district.
I added the bold highlight to the text from the article.Here’s the exact wording of the yes/no question:
“Eligibility to vote. Shall section 1 of article III of the constitution, which deals with suffrage, be amended to provide that only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or at a statewide or local referendum?”
