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| Laura Hinkle ('22) |
The United States has made drastic strides in enfranchising American citizens in the past 230 years, from the 18th century qualifications of being a white, male property owner to current inclusivity of almost every American citizen through the passage of six voting-related amendments. This evolution promotes the basic principles of Republicanism, in that Americans are able to express their views on parties, platforms, and policies by electing politicians to represent them. Yet there is a group of American citizens, numbering around four million, who have not been given full voting privileges— those that live in the American territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, United States Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands. Should citizens in United States territories have the right to vote in presidential elections?
The justification for a lack of voting rights dates to the 1904 Insular Case Downes v. Bidwell, a Supreme Court decision that stated: “If [American territories] are inhabited by alien races...the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible.” This decision, according to University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson, promoted “the view that to be a ‘true American,’ one had to share certain racial, religious, or ethnic characteristics.” Territorial citizens, comprised mostly of minorities, did not fit this standard and thus were not given full suffrage. Proponents of territorial voting rights point out that over the last century, the United States has transformed into a melting pot of diverse people, and the concept of what it means to be an American has changed as well. To continue disenfranchising millions of people is irresponsible, oppressive, and frankly, un-American. Similarly, just because the territories are not contiguous with the US doesn’t mean they should be excluded from the political process. As Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sim clearly states, voting should be “for all citizens, of all places as well as all races.”
On the other hand, territorial citizens do not contribute to the federal government in the same way citizens in states do, mainly because they don’t pay income tax. Public finance analyst Sean Lowry explains that territories receive special tax incentives meant to stimulate their struggling economies, such as reduced cost on capital investment—a benefit not given to most Americans. So, if those in territories are not contributing fully as a citizen but instead are receiving tax advantages, is it fair for them to have rights analogous to citizens in states? Amber Cottle of the University of Chicago Legal Forum affirms that yes, it is. She states that citizens of the Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam contribute in the form of “mirror image” taxes, paying the same amount of money as would be required for income tax but to local governments instead of the federal government. Along with this, ratification of the 24th amendment removed taxes as a qualification for voting, and as best stated by the House Judiciary Committee at the time, taxes are a “meaningless requirement, having no reasonable relationship to the rights and privileges of citizenship.” This was further proven when Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections held that “voter qualifications have no relation to… paying this or any other tax.”
The Constitution enumerates in Article II, Section 2, that only states, not territories, can participate in the presidential election process. Therefore, the solutions available to territories are limited to the adoption of a constitutional amendment or statehood, both of which involve a long, drawn-out process and may be unsuccessful. The most viable solution would be a constitutional amendment modeled after the 23rd, which granted voting rights to those living in the District of Columbia. The voiceless citizens of American territories should be forced into silence no longer. Let us grant them the greatest, most empowering gift democracy can offer – the right to vote.