Right to Vote
'What is ultimately required is an absolute guarantee of the right to vote and the right to have that vote counted. That affirmation should be added to the United States Constitution, in an amendment along the lines of the one proposed last year by Congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, and Congressman Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin.
'Supported by groups such as FairVote and Color of Change, the Ellison-Pocan “Right to Vote” amendment simply declares:
SECTION 1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.
SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.
'These are proper benchmarks. When the right to vote is guaranteed, when it is constitutionally established as fundamental, that is a strong place of beginning for establishing the infrastructure of genuinely functional and genuinely representative democracy.'