✓Right to Vote Ryan Baidya, Ph.D., MBA Takshila Foundation, California, USA
My inbox is now full of requests to vote in November 2020. Also, they are asking me to contact families and friends so that they too come to exercise their right to vote. The right to Vote is one of the most-valued assets we as a citizen of the Nation possess. Yet there had been incidents where citizens throw away assets like used paper towels. BUT WHY? Current Candidates are quite concerned about citizens not exercising their right to Vote, and that is a very valid concern. If we step back for a little, we can see how much blood had to flow, how much suffering and grief had to endure before we achieved this most-valuable asset. Yet, we do not protect it - we throw away this asset even without thinking a bit. Why? The answer to that is in the systemic problem in the present processes. The system certainly does not encourage citizens to vote. The system also does not allow the citizens to exercise their true Right to Vote. While there are hunger and savage killing of people where human being emerged from cavepeople to socially developed intelligence in parts of the African continent; while there are fireballs and screams in the places of early civilization and human democracy – the croissant of civilization; while there is paining baby-face looks at the world with disgust; it is a total failure of the elite, the brains, the Nobel laureate, the think-tank analyst, and the world organizations, and its titled members. They all say that they are playing with the fire for freedom, and the right to live. That is right, it is the RIGHT to have RIGHT, and it is worth dying for to have the RIGHT. A RIGHT to speak; a right to have expressed; above all a right to select our representatives – the voting right is the right of an American Citizen that many are jealous of, at least that is what we are told. This is fundamentally critical for a civilized nation of a democratic class to have voting right. As President Abraham Lincoln best described democracy as the "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." For that government to be "by the people," however, requires that the people decide who shall be their leaders including Mayors, congressmen, senators, governors, and the president.
Without free and fair elections, there can be no democratic society, and without the constant accountability of government officials to the electorate, there can be no assurance of any other rights. The right to vote, therefore, is not only important individual liberty; it is also a foundation stone of free government. Thus, article: 12 in the Bill of Rights gives the United State of America to its all Citizen –the Right to Vote. It clearly states: -The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.— Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1870). Even after President Lincoln’s vision, we did not get it quite right. Article 12 of the Bill of Rights left the word sex. And it was not added until the 1920s revision. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex — Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Rights yet cartel concerning economic miss fortune – it is hard to understand how this sub-clause comes into play. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election . . . shall not be denied or abridged . . . because of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.— Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964). Further modified the voting right by age in 1971 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age.— Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971). Here is what President Abraham Lincoln would say - you got it right the RIGHT finally. *****