The Fundamental Right You Don't Have

[Sapphire Blue]

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
March 10, 2005

The right to vote is the fundamental citizenship right that protects all other rights. Maybe that explains the shape we're in.

The Bible says that if you build a house on sand, when it rains, the winds blow and the storms come it will not stand. The last two presidential elections have demonstrated that our voting system is built on sand.

Republicans and Democrats alike concede that votes have been lost or miscounted; machines have malfunctioned; and voters who should be able to vote are turned away while those that shouldn't be allowed to vote have voted anyway. The question that's been on all our minds is: What is wrong with our democracy? Why in state after state, year after year, do we keep on having these problems? What do we need to do to reinforce our electoral house so it does not sink into oblivion?

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Instead of a house on sand, we need to build our democracy and our voting system on a rock: the rock of a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that applies to all states and all citizens. That's why I and 56 colleagues in the House of Representatives have joined to support House Joint Resolution 28—which, in the cause of electoral justice, should be the 28th amendment to the Constitution.

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