Vickie Lee Roach Essay

Arguably the most important referendum in Australia’s history occurred on May 27th 1967. This was the day that decided Indigenous Australians place in society, representing Aboriginal discrimination coming to an end. The vote was not about getting citizenship or voting right for the Aboriginals, it was targeted at making amendments to the constitution, allowing the Indigenous Australians to be counted in the Australian census and allowing Australian laws that included the Aboriginal Australians. The 1967 referendum had two sections requiring change, section 51 and 127. The eradication of all prejudice requirements within Commonwealth constitution was passed with voters support by the Australian body with an astonishing  90.77% of votes.

This report will cover the history of the Aboriginal Voting rights in Australia. The Aboriginals did not gain the right to federal voting at least 150 years after the British colonized in Australia. All citizens of a nation deserve equal rights.

The adversarial nature of Australia’s court system deal with facts and legal implications. Here lies the establishment of such principles that make the law

The case of Mabo v Others v State of Queensland (No.2) (1992) 175 CLR 1 (www.austlii, 1993), rewrote common law as the court ruled in a six to one majority, that the people of

RICHARD CROWLEY: If it pleases the court and the gentlemen of the jury: On November fifth, 1872, a general election for different officers was held. The defendant, Miss Susan B. Anthony, at the time resided in the city of Rochester, in the county of Monroe, Northern District of New York. On the fifth day of November 1872, she voted for a representative in the Congress of the United States, to represent to the 20th Congressional District of the State. At the time of her voting, she was a woman, there is no question of that. The question in this case, in my opinion, will be a question of law over one of fact. I suppose that there will be no question of fact, when all of the evidence is out and it will be for you to decide whether or not the defendant committed the offense of voting for a representative in Congress. There is no question about it and whatever Miss Anthony’s intentions were, she did not have the right to vote. She is guilty of violating a law of the United States. On the fifth of November 1872, she voted whether she believed that she had a right to vote or not. It is not necessary for me, gentlemen, at this stage of the case, to state all of the facts and I will leave that to be shown by the evidence and by the witnesses.

She was arrested for attempting to vote but her persistence lead to a huge change in women’s history.

Felons are people who have been convicted of a felony. Felony is a crime, typically one involving violence, regarded as more serious than a misdemeanor, and usually punishable by imprisonment for more than one year or by death. In Maine and Vermont, felons never lose their right to vote, even while they are incarcerated. Vermont’s 1793 Constitution stipulates that residents can lose their right to vote only if convicted of voter fraud. In Florida, Lowa and Virginia, felons and ex-felons permanently lose their right to vote. Eleven states restrict voting even after a person has completed their prison sentence and finished probation or parole. Twenty states require completion of parole and probation before voting is allowed, and fourteen states allow felons to vote after they leave prison. Florida and Texas each disenfranchise more than 600,000 people. In 1789, Kentucky became the first U.S. state to ban convicted criminals from voting. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that felon disenfranchisement is a violation of the Voting Rights Act in her May 4, 2006 dissenting opinion in Hayden v. Pataki. Ex-felons should be able to vote because they served their time and now they are out. Hayden v. Pataki is a legal challenge to New York State 's law disenfranchising individuals convicted of felonies while in prison and on parole. The initial pro se complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, by Joseph Hayden on September 12,

In Susan’s speech “Speech After Being Convicted of Voting,” she argues that all citizens of the United States are given the same rights so they have to be followed. Which was something the people back then weren't doing. The women have had a rough time back

Even though the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have improved in comparison to 50 years ago, they still aren't able to be defined as "equal", not to mention this type of treatment is being repeated to asylum seekers coming to Australia. Even before the 1967 referendum, in 1962, the Aboriginal population was legally allowed to vote, but still weren't counted on the census (Healey, 2003). After the referendum changed this, the European side believed that that was all that needed to be done, when in reality, even today, section 25 of the Australian Constitution still states "Provision as to races disqualified from voting- For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the

In 1963 Shirley Andrews and Barry Christophers, who founded the Equal Wages for Aborigines Committee, started a campaign for equal pay rights and pointed out notions of equality would not be true unless they were reflected in the pay packet. And a year later in 1964, 3 years before the referendum, the North Australian Workers Union presented a case for equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers. The case of equal pay was being heard in 1966, on year before the referendum, which brought a lot of attention to the discrimination and unfairness of the Aborigines further helping the Referendum of 1967. But also in in 1962 the Commonwealth Electoral Act was amended to give Indigenous people the choice to enroll and vote if they wished to, but it wasn’t compulsory like the rest of the population. Finally in 1965 Indigenous people in all states, Queensland being the last state to pass the law, gained the exact same voting rights as any other Australian and was allowed to vote in state elections. The voting rights being given to Aboriginals was the biggest contributor to the overwhelming yes vote for the 1967

In the United State there are 5.6 million people serving their time behind bars with many of their rights stripped away. Among these rights is the right to vote. Is this a right that the states can remove? This fact brings to light three main questions. First, do American inmates have the right to vote under American laws or the Constitution? Second, how would allowing inmates to vote change the face of elections? Finally, should inmates have the right to vote based on ethical premises? Today, we will attempt to answer these questions.

The Supreme Court also referred to the Voting Rights Act with respect to the outlawing of a durational residential requirement in voting in the presidential and vice-presidential elections. Since all states fall under Federal Law that the state could not use this as a requirement. Since state matters are different though they concluded that anything longer than 30 days would be too long.

When felons are incarcerated they lose many privileges. From visiting to phone privileges, inmates lose the freedom to do whatever they please. Among those lost privileges is the right to vote. So far inmates are denied the right to vote in 46 states. In 14 states felons are denied the right to vote for the rest of their lives (Fagin, 2014, p. 237). Losing the right to vote is a form of banishment used to punish the inmate for his or her actions.

Voting compulsion can very simply be defined as the process of electoral participation being law binding. However, the process and fundamentals of compulsory voting are not as simple. Twomey, in her article Compulsory Voting In A Representative Democracy: Choice, Compulsion, And The Maximization Of Participation In Australian Elections describes compulsory voting to stand “… at the intersection between the principles of maximum participation of the people in elections and the expression of genuine choice.” Within this essay, I critique compulsory voting to show that it is a contradiction to basic civil liberty, it will be straining in terms of cost to enforce, and that random voting is most likely to distort results and with it the validity of our governmental system. I show this through the analyzation of several scholarly works in contrast to the arguments of critics who ensure that compulsory voting is for the greater good of society. However, this essay will refute this point by addressing the downfalls to this system and how these downfalls cannot be overlooked simply because of turnout.

Various events and decisions, such as the devolution of states in the United Kingdom (“UK”) and the formation of the Republic of Ireland, can be argued as being more critical to the development of Britain than a decision to leave the European Union (“EU”). The legal reform of combining the courts of common law and equity can also be argued as being the most significant legal event in British constitutional history. Past Parliamentary decisions affecting the UK’s relationship with the EU, such as joining the EU and domestically incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights, can be argued as having more constitutional significance than the Referendum. Future Parliamentary decisions, such as a Scottish Referendum, could also be a more significant constitutional event by creating a possible precedent for other devolved states or dominions joining the