[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_veuEhhb1658wti0_ZAig66JOyixENU-N9zhjLQSLfOQ.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000003","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/articles\/1\/essays\/4\/elector-qualifications\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EElector Qualifications\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Article I, Section 2, Clause 1\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E...the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the Constitutional Convention, the Framers debated whether the electors of the House of Representatives should be limited to freeholders, or whether they should incorporate state voting laws by requiring that whoever the state decides is eligible to vote for \u201cthe most numerous Branch of the State Legislature\u201d is also eligible to vote for the House of Representatives. The majority of the delegates preferred to defer to the states and approved the Elector Qualifications Clause. As James Wilson summarized in records of the Convention, \u201cIt was difficult to form any uniform rule of qualifications for all the States.\u201d Unnecessary innovations, he thought, should also be avoided: \u201cIt would be very hard \u0026amp; disagreeable for the same persons, at the same time, to vote for representatives in the State Legislature and to be excluded from a vote for those in the Natl. Legislature.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThus, the Constitution gives authority for determining elector qualifications to the states. The Seventeenth Amendment adopted the same qualifications language to apply to the popular election of United States Senators. This authority is superseded only insofar as the Constitution itself forbids the denial of equal protection and the exclusion of voters on specific grounds, such as race (Fifteenth Amendment), sex (Nineteenth Amendment), failure to pay a poll tax or other tax (Twenty-fourth Amendment), and, for those eighteen years old or older, age (Twenty-sixth Amendment).\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EArticle I, Section 4 allows Congress to \u201cmake or alter such [state] Regulations\u201d regarding \u201cthe Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,\u201d but, as a textual matter, Congress\u2019s power is about \u201cholding Elections\u201d\u2014not about who votes, which is the express focus of Section 2. Both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison believed the two clauses to be independent in this way. Hamilton, in \u003Ci\u003EThe\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EFederalist \u003C\/i\u003ENo. 60, said of Article I, Section 4 that\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ethe national government\u2019s \u201cauthority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the \u003Ci\u003Etimes\u003C\/i\u003E, the \u003Ci\u003Eplaces\u003C\/i\u003E, and the \u003Ci\u003Emanner\u003C\/i\u003E of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose or may be chosen\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the [national] legislature.\u201d (Emphasis in original.) In \u003Ci\u003EThe Federalist \u003C\/i\u003ENo. 52, Madison wrote of Article I, Section\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003E2, \u201c[t]o have left it [the definition of the right of suffrage] open for the occasional regulation of the Congress, would have been improper.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u201d Hamilton and Madison believed that generally the state constitutions, and certainly not Congress, would determine who could vote.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Supreme Court has applied the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate certain state regulations that excluded classes of voters from the franchise. In \u003Ci\u003EKramer v. Union Free School District No. 15 \u003C\/i\u003E(1969),\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ethe Court declared that it was unconstitutional to limit school district elections to property holders or to those who had children enrolled in the district schools.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Court has also upheld congressional regulation of federal elections over contrary state laws. In \u003Ci\u003EOregon v. Mitchell\u003C\/i\u003E (1970), a decision of limited precedential value, five Justices in a highly fractured series of opinions voted to uphold federal legislation\u2014passed prior to the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which was ratified a little over six months after the Court\u2019s decision\u2014that required the states to allow eighteen-year-olds to vote in federal elections. While it is true that in this case a majority of the Justices did vote to uphold a statute that dictated who could vote in federal elections, only one of the five Justices who did so\u2014Justice Hugo L. Black\u2014relied on Article I, Section 4 (power of Congress to regulate the times, manner, and places of elections). The other four relied on interpretations of Congress\u2019s enforcement authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In \u003Ci\u003ECity\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003Eof Boerne v. Flores \u003C\/i\u003E(1997), the Court ruled that\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003ECongress may not assert authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment \u201cto enforce\u201d the amendment by prohibiting state actions not closely related to violations of the amendment. The Court has not yet directly applied this principle to congressional statutes regulating suffrage.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAccordingly, it would seem that reliance on Article I, Section 4 to trump Article I, Section 2 lacks textual support, and only Justice Black endorsed it in 1970. In sum, the general rule seems to be that Congress may pass laws superseding the states\u2019 determination of elector qualifications only when confronted with a deliberate denial of either a specific constitutional guarantee of the right to vote or of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn \u003Ci\u003ETashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut \u003C\/i\u003E(1986), the Supreme Court, by a 5\u20134 majority,\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eused the First Amendment to restrict the application of the Elector Qualifications Clause in primary elections. In that case, a Connecticut law that required a closed primary conflicted with a Connecticut Republican Party rule that permitted independent voters to vote in Republican primaries for federal and statewide offices. The Court said that the Connecticut law violated freedom of association. Similarly, the Court struck down California\u2019s blanket open primary law in \u003Ci\u003ECalifornia Democratic Party v. Jones \u003C\/i\u003E(2000), but\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ethe Court upheld Oklahoma\u2019s more moderate form of a closed primary law, which prevented voters registered with other parties to cross over to vote in another party\u2019s primary. \u003Ci\u003EClingman v.\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EBeaver \u003C\/i\u003E(2005).\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe majority in \u003Ci\u003ETashjian\u003C\/i\u003E also held that the implementation of party rules\u2014that established different qualifications for voting in congressional elections than in elections for the more numerous house of the state legislature\u2014did not violate the Elector Qualifications Clause (or the Seventeenth Amendment). Primaries are subject to these clauses, the Court said, but the purpose of those clauses is satisfied \u201cif all those qualified to participate in the selection of members of the more numerous branch of the state legislature are also qualified to participate in the election of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.\u201d There is no need for \u201cperfect symmetry.\u201d Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented: \u201cThe Court nevertheless separates the federal voter qualifications from their state counterparts, inexplicably treating the mandatory \u2018shall have\u2019 language of the clauses as though it means only that the federal voters \u2018may but need not have\u2019 the qualifications of state voters.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/Roger_Clegg.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ceousa.org\/about-ceo\/about-ceo\/staff\/511-roger-clegg\u0022\u003ERoger Clegg\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         President and General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000003-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000003-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000003-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000003-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000003-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnited States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECarrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89 (1965)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U.S. 621 (1969)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECity of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECalifornia Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567 (2000)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EClingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581 (2005)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000003-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000018\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EElection Regulations\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000170\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EEqual Protection\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000175\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ESuffrage\u2014Race\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000180\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ESuffrage\u2014Sex\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000185\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EPoll Taxes\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000187\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ESuffrage\u2014Age\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]