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Federal Government Disenfranchisement Analysis

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By going against the federal government and undermining its power constantly in this time period, the Supreme Court essentially undermined the power of the citizens of the United States. The people elect officials to run both the state and federal government. If the Supreme Court begins tampering with the balance of the two, then they are stripping away the power of the people and redistributing it where they see fit. The Supreme Court has no right to redistribute power between federal and state government for their needs at the time. They must uphold the Constitution and maintain the balance of power in all branches. These cases show that they are giving themselves power above the federal government. Their ability to strip power away from …show more content…
South Carolina was first to implement a similar concept that would eventually evolve into literacy tests called the “eight-box” ballot in 1882. Separate ballots were put in place for separate offices. The order was shuffled continuously so no help could be given. If a ballot of an office not specified on the box were placed within the box, then the ballot was thrown out. This was an implicit literacy test. In 1890, Southern states adopted explicit literacy tests in an attempt to disenfranchise voters within their state primarily blacks. Two clauses were implemented in order to have illiterate whites be able to vote, but ensure that illiterate blacks could not vote. The first clause was the grandfather clause, which allowed any person, literate or illiterate, to vote if their ancestors could vote in 1867. This year was prior to blacks gaining the right to vote, which ensured that they could not use it for their own gain at all. The second clause was the understanding clause, which allowed illiterate citizens to vote if they could show their understanding of the meaning of a randomly selected passage within the Constitution. This allowed them to clear illiterate white voters through and deny illiterate blacks, regardless of what they said. Since the meaning of a passage is subjective, the one administering it can decide what is correct and incorrect. This means if the person …show more content…
These laws aimed to not allow criminals to vote in any election. They were adopted by over a third of the United States: “Between 1865 and 1900, 19 states adopted or amended laws restricting the voting rights of criminal offenders” (Uggen, Behrens, and Manza 2). It had become a widespread practice within the United States that disenfranchised a good deal of citizens. One major motivator for these laws was race: “In 1850, 11 of the 32 existing states disenfranchised for a felony conviction. In contrast, by the time of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, 28 of the then 38 states had done so...States’ attempts to undermine the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by effectively preventing African Americans from voting have been well documented” (Uggen, Behrens, and Manza 8) It is not a coincidence that these laws were more heavily adopted after voting was extended to blacks. The widespread adoption after the Civil War was racially motivated. Like the previous laws, these felony disenfranchisement laws were a thinly veiled way of denying blacks the right to vote in the South in any way they could at the time. Even if the laws weren’t racially fueled, it still disenfranchises voters for simply committing a crime. Committing a crime does not cause a person to revoke his rights as a citizen of the United States. Therefore, it should not force him to revoke his right to

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