I was pretty surprised to see articles saying that the majority of Republicans think that voting is a privilege and not a right. That seemed a little extreme. Plausible, but still extreme. So, I dug deeper:
What the Pew Research Center’s poll said
Media coverage of the poll is saying that 57% of Americans believe that voting is a fundamental right while 42% believe that it’s a privilege, but the wording in the poll wasn’t that black and white.
What did the poll actually ask?
According to the information Pew released, the questions were prefaced by the following instructions:
Next are some pairs of statements that will help us understand how you feel about a number of things. Please choose the statement that comes closer to your own views —even if neither is exactly right.
What problem are you seeing here, Lea?
The first problem I’m seeing is that the two schools of thought about voting aren’t phrased with equal weight. The first option is saying that voting is a fundamental right that “should not be restricted in any way.” The second option is saying that voting is a privilege that “can be limited” if people don’t meet some requirements. Under the first option, does that mean that residency restrictions are invalid and Pennsylvania residents should be able to vote in Ohio? If someone is considering that hypothetical, are they going to think that the first option or the second option is “closer to their own views—even if neither is exactly right”?
There’s a middle ground between thinking that voting shouldn’t be restricted in any way and thinking that voting is only a privilege. Which brings us to my second problem:
The Constitution doesn’t say that that fundamental rights can’t be limited.
Right now, there are few fundamental rights that are above being limited by the government. It’s actually pretty fair to say that there are no rights that can’t be limited for a good enough reason. That’s why people can be put in jail and executed.
While the Constitution doesn’t permit voting restrictions that are based on race, gender, ability to pay, or put an age-based restriction on people over the age of 18, it is silent about other restrictions. So, the system we have now permits some restrictions, but voting is still understood to be a fundamental right.
There’s an argument to be made that this poll forced people into picking the closer of two polar opposite options. We can only wonder what people would have picked if they were given the chance to choose our current system.
Key Takeaways:
- Be careful about what you take away from poll results.
- A poll is limited by the answers it offers.
- Never trust an interpretation of what a poll was asking, and check the original language the poll used.
