Voting: a Right or a Privilege

Introduction

There are two main opposing views of the importance of voting. The worth of individual votes is frequently considered minuscule and therefore labeled as less deserving of the prominence set by the concept of a right. Through viewing voting as an individual right, various theoretical and practical constraints can be dismantled, thus achieving extensive representation. This work illustrates these points in more detail in the following sections. The idea that voting is nothing more than an individual right is set out to examine both positive obligations in favor of 'a right to vote' and the significance of encouraging widespread participation.

Measures to enhance turnout levels, such as making election day a public holiday, cater to the 'voter as consumer' view and are only introduced on a short-term basis. Curiosity drives this particular kind of turnout enhancement, but what might this inquisitiveness lead to in the realm of more commonplace decisions? In such cases, the lack of easily identifiable, concrete gains predominates.

Others, however, believe that voting is not a basic human right. There exists an intrinsic connection between the concept of rights and the attendant duties or responsibilities. A rights perspective can proceed to examine the implications of this link: duties can have different origins, as a result of agentic acts, community consensus, etc. The discovery process that finds voting as the agent of legitimation makes obligations scholars undertake empirical research. Such an enterprise must probe the diversity of successful techniques for establishing the appropriateness of a given system further. A right-based perspective provides an individual voice, but how does this critical voter interact with others to produce supportive views, where some associated duties are demanded, and others are presumed?

History of Voting Rights

Historically speaking, the right of an individual to vote has been closely controverted since human beings have been living together in anything larger than small family units. The concept of majority voting has substantial religious underpinnings. In Hebrew scripture and in Catholic dogma, the will of God was seen to be expressed by a majority of the faithful; the idea of a poll has religious roots. The early Greeks also had an affinity for the idea of majority decision-making. However, among the more advanced Greeks, such as Plato, the notion of utilizing plebeian decision-making techniques was not only an affront to religion but more significantly to human dignity itself. Consequently, it is not surprising that throughout most of recorded history, the franchise has been exceedingly limited. However, with the worldwide dispersion of Western liberal culture and the modern emphasis on inalienable human rights, the broadening of the right to vote has been the major political dynamic of the past two centuries. The process began at the national level in the Western world in the 19th century; in the last generation, white males have been granted universal suffrage, and in our own time, enfranchisement has been extended to women in every country and to all races in many countries. The dramatic spread of adult franchise to a substantial proportion of humankind stands, along with the spread of education, as a principal accomplishment of the Western experience of the past century.

Legal Standards

The standards in American voting law mandate equal access for all qualified citizens: the right to cast a ballot, not a privilege. The basic legal authorities in voting law in the United States start with federal statutory law. Specifically, protection of the right to vote is set forth in Title 52 of the United States Code. This federal law resulted from the voting rights movement in the United States, a civil rights struggle, led and won by civil rights and voting rights activists. As America broadened its scope of who gets to vote and as the federal government protected the new electorate through federal law, states and local governments also grew within the tiers of the political system, honoring the federal legal category of voting as a right and guiding and protecting the customary three election day voting options to intact the lawful political definition of voting.

Right vs Privilege

Perusing the Constitution of the United States, it is surprising to find that the right to vote is not stated. For the administration, one must return to the Constitution as it has been amended. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state. One point which the original Constitution makes clear is that the vote is not necessarily a right, but may be a privilege which can be confined to certain groups. Thus, the Constitution specifies that the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. As it was common practice to confine the franchise to property holders or taxpayers, this meant that the power of making laws and appointing officials could be the exclusive province of a small minority. The property franchise had two other advantages for the governing groups. In the first place, since most people were not within the charmed circle, they could not enjoy the benefits which flowed from governmental activity.

If the demand for public goods was small, then the property-owning class could be largely exempt from taxation. Secondly, since most of the helots did not vote but paid most of the taxes, the burden of maintaining the tax-paying electors could be held down to a minimum. The outcome is a possible paradox. In a community with a small proportion of enfranchised people and a high proportion of slaves or serfs, there is no conflict of interest for the voters. They tax the large numbers of slaves or serfs to the limit of their endurance and then consume the value of their output in the provision of tax-financed public goods. Except in a simple society whose government has hardly graduated to the size of being a self-conscious social class and has done no more than obey traditional, religious, or customary norms, there is an asymmetry between the makers of political decisions and the subjects of these decisions. The main interest is that there is a mass of excluded people who suffer the consequences of political decisions without having effective participation in the public decision-making process.

Conclusion

Contrary to current practices, recognized standards and principles about the right to vote would refer to a concept accurately identified as a right as opposed to a privilege. A right to vote has a particular cultural meaning. Even when statutory provisions are in place and certain criteria for free, periodic and genuine election have been established, the cultural dimension underlying the right to vote is not visible. Yet, considerations about financial contribution or practical participatory activity in society have had a place in some historical accounts of the franchise. Amidst global and European Union levels, conceptual arguments are sometimes mentioned in stating that the right to vote is a privilege. These arguments lack philosophical support. Legal reconstruction, while reflecting sociocultural evolution, may help in setting the record straight. Thence, it is how leading legal norms have been interpreted.

There is no reason to believe that interpretations of complex legal wording about the right to participate may have been added to reflect a modern understanding of the individual. Such top down affirmative action in an individual and social matter such as the functioning of democracy could undermine principled nominations about expressing sovereign will. Were it to be done, its legitimacy would demand highly principled judicial action. However, our research results revealing that voting is perceived today by many as a privilege deserving of protection mitigate democratic legitimacy. A good start to deconstructing this view in the United Kingdom has been achieved by parliamentary debates, but other voices, especially those who have given serious study to history, would afford the democratic community the resonance it deserves. The study has paid attention to some classical texts. Mode section analysis and deliberative accounts were identified as reflecting modern sociocultural specifications, one of the earliest examples being Aristotle.

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