Election Beat 2022: How state laws threaten and weaken voting rights in the U.S.

The cumulative impact of states’ efforts to control access to the ballot will not be known until after the November votes are counted but it could be large enough to affect control of the House and Senate. Journalists might consider reminding their audience about what’s required to register and vote in their state.”

Thomas E. Patterson

When the Bill of Rights was proposed, it was unthinkable that the right to vote would be included. That would have meant extending it to women, free Black people, and white people without property. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gave the states the power to determine who could vote in federal elections.

That provision was subsequently modified by constitutional amendments, the 15th and 19th, that granted voting rights to newly freed Black people and women, respectively. However, as New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes noted in 1907 — 13 years before he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is …”

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