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African americans voting rights
Voting rights for african americans
African americans voting rights
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In contemporary society, people are less aware and inquisitive of the world they live in. Within our nation, people are oblivious to the hardships other nations face and the effects of those hardships on our nation. In response to this, some have argued that voting should be a privilege earned through serving the country for twenty-four months. Although voting is a privilege that should be earned, confining voting to only those who serve would infringe people’s unalienable voting right and would lead to an unfair disadvantage to a proportion of the population.
To begin, voting is a crucial process. The opposition argues that an individual serving the county will endow a knowledge essential to the political voting process. This knowledge is
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However, voting is a constitutional right and is a right that has a powerful history behind it. Notably speaking is the history behind voter discrimination against African Americans. Though events such as the Civil War “ended” voter discrimination against blacks, many blacks were still limited in the voting process due to literacy tests and poll taxes. With this, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement transpired, encompassing the persistent battle fought for the victory among African Americans to vote. By all means, voting is a right that was earned. Not one that was just given. By segregating those who are assumed to be “more knowledgeable” to those who aren’t would lead to a new controversy dividing our nation. In like manner, who can truly say those who serve the country will be more knowledgeable than those who didn’t? That being said, there are many intelligent voters in the nation that is influential in the political process, who haven’t served the country. Example being are state electors in the electoral college process who are powerful in choosing the president. Thus, limiting voting to those who have a “better” grasp of the world will lead to a election process that isn’t based off popular vote, but rather a bias
On the national civics assessment, “two-thirds of 12th graders scored below ‘proficient’…and only 9 percent could list two ways a democracy benefits from citizen participation” (O’Connor and Romer 4). The information provided clarifies just how little students know about democracy. Without education on the subject, they are unaware as to how their government contribution is beneficial and why it is needed in the first place. The students, because of their lack of understanding, therefore choose to not take part in their government and fail to carry out their duties as a citizen. The authors provide more research that shows “the better people understand our history and system of government, the more likely they are to vote and participate in the civic life” (O’Connor and Romer 8).
...adults compared to older adults were less likely to respond that voting was extremely important for good citizenship (133). He concludes that it is too late for the generation of young adults that do not feel voting is an important civic responsibility, however, that it is not too late to convince them that politics matter by showing them that they are giving their opportunity to make important decisions that may impact their lives to others who have different ideas. One may agree with Wattenberg’s idea that habits follow people throughout their lives instead of changing as they cycle in life. His personal accounts are an impactful way to illustrate the importance of building a sense of duty at a young age and carrying that responsibility throughout one’s life.
Representation: the effort of elected officials to look out for the interests of those who elect them
Throughout American History, people of power have isolated specific racial and gender groups and established policies to limit their right to vote. These politicians, in desperate attempt to elongate their political reign, resort to “anything that is within the rules to gain electoral advantage, including expanding or contracting the rate of political participation.”(Hicks) Originally in the United States, voting was reserved for white, property-owning gentleman
It is our civic right and duty to actively participate in governmental affairs. This recent election really highlighted the divide in opinion regarding the importance of governmental participation. “To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter,” West writes in his essay entitled The Deep Democratic Tradition in America. Young people feel unimportant and irrelevant, which explains the lack in turnout from young voters ages 18-29. However, it wasn’t just young voters that didn’t turnout. Millions of eligible voters didn’t show up for the 2016 elections. A democracy without active participants is a democracy bound for
Among the many ways Americans can participate in politics, voting is considered one of the most common and important ways for Americans to get involved. The outcome of any election, especially at the national level, determines who will be making and enforcing the laws that all Americans must abide by. With this in mind one might assume that all Americans are active voters, but studies show the voter turnout is actually astonishingly low. With this unsettling trend it is important to know what statistics say about voter turnout as was as the four major factors that influence participation: Socioeconomic status, education, political environment, and state electoral laws, in order to help boost turnout in future elections.
They are more likely to research the issues and make an informed discussion. We should place focus on each person’s vote rather than each person’s vote being clump into their state’s vote. Why would someone take the time to vote when to them it does not matter? They see their vote going to a group of votes to decide the outcome of their state not the outcome of the whole race. If we could give the people the chance to see their vote as a discussion to the whole race I can see them taking the time to vote. There will be less of the attitude my vote doesn’t could why should I vote. This would be a way to get more people involved and to further advance the country. If we have people involved in electing the president then we have people that are involved in our country and would fight to keep it going. I feel that we should focus on getting more people involved in the country and one way to do that is to get rid of the Electoral College and continue with the popular vote.
During the year of 1870, on the 3rd day in the month of February, the 15th amendment was ratified. The 15th amendment prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Basically, giving all United States citizens the equal right to vote. Thousands of brave men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend the United States constitution that holds our rights. Not to mention all the hard work from several people it took to pass congress. So why not make voting mandatory? Mandatory voting will benefit the United States citizens by allowing everyone to exercise their rights, therefore, entitling us to have a say in the electoral process, possibly making a change to improve our country.
Make enrolling to vote less demanding. U.S. states have received changes proposed to make it less demanding for natives to vote. encourage individuals to enroll to vote when they recharge their drivers licenses. Early voting changes permit individuals to vote over a time of weeks or days, not simply on Election Day. consequently, enlist their residents to vote, evacuating a noteworthy obstacle in the appointive procedure. consequently, enlists subjects when they turn 18 would have a greater
From its early period, the United States has obtained an indirect type of democracy, and has always had contentment that its citizens are allowed to vote for their representatives, especially the President. Nevertheless, the amount of citizens that actually vote in nationwide elections has decreased noticeably over the years. Voter participation and turnout has been declining in the United States throughout history. Voter turnout, the percentage of eligible individuals who actually vote (Ginsberg), to this day is lower than it was in the 1900’s. Since 1912, presidential elections have only had about 50 to 65 percent of Americans participate. This means that about half of United States citizens who are eligible and have the freedom to vote have failed to participate in presidential elections. At the end of the nineteenth century voter turnout started plummeting, reaching the 60 percent level by the election of 1912 (Teixeira, 1987). The declining rate of voter participation in the United States is due to voter registration and procedu...
Throughout American history, many minority groups have encountered significant barriers to the right to vote. Traditionally, specific populations concerned with protecting their power over others have maintained tight control over this privilege. In doing so, violations of basic human rights have occurred; state and federal governments established voting restrictions based on race. Fortunately, several methods were taken for overcoming these limitations that resulted in the voting practices used today. These recent legislations that government enacted have been to benefit voters. This research paper will go in depth with the main restrictions, laid out by either the states or the government, placed on different races in America, look at the over-comings of these limitations, and get a small glance at how voting is today and the acts the government put in place to help voters have a more pleasant voting experience.
...eople not voting! Americans are becoming less educated on the issues that they are facing as well as the candidates running at the time of office. However, according Longley (2011) ”Still, 93 percent of infrequent voters agreed that voting is an important part of being a good citizen and 81 percent of nonvoters agreed it is an important way to voice their opinions on issues that affect their families and communities” (pg. 1).
In order to completely understand how far society has come and the amount of work that still must be done, in regards to being able to exercise our voting rights, we must first understand some of the voting barriers that minorities had to face in the past. It was not until 1870 that the 15th amendment was passed, declaring it unconstitutional for an individual to be denied the right to vote based on their color, race or previous condition of servitude. However, the 15th amendment only applied to male individuals, it did not guarantee the right for women to vote. Instead female voters had to wait an additional fifty years until they were granted the privilege to vote. In 1920, the 19th amendment was finally passed, stating that regardless of gender every American citizen had the right to vote.
Only around fifty to sixty percent of registered voters actually go to the polls. This is a problem that the United States has been facing. Because of these low turnouts, some people say that voting should be made compulsory. Compulsory, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is, “required by a law or rule”. Voting should not be made compulsory because voting is a right, not a duty; there are alternatives that tackle the real causes of voter disengagement; and persuasion is more effective than coercion.
As we inform each other over the agendas of each candidate, we must explore which is committed to making this country into a better place, not only satisfy your own selfish reasons, which is considered a social responsibility. There so much that comes into factor, like what are the candidate’s thoughts, in the foreign policy, economic growth, health policy, etc. and it’s true that in politics, not everyone is going be pleased but we should try our best for our vote to be good cause and that could implement change many diverse laws we have today. Presidential elections should not be only big issue we have in the U.S, but local government elections play such big outcome in how everything is being in your state, like voting for the Governor that appeals to more to your ideals or that can fix the issues the state have been suffering through. Slowly I’ve started to see people involving themselves with more local government changes which is great, if we can change the power of state for the good then there’s high chances we will do for the whole country and for that to become a fact is for everyone to vote, stay informed with all issues and standings that each candidate wants to bring to the table, and be courteous of others and how your life and others can be affect by just a single