The right to vote is constitutionally protected under the Due Process and Equal
Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 (“No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.”); Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104 (2000) (“When the state
legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the
legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in
the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter.”).
Under Article I, § 2 of the Maryland Constitution, our General Assembly is required
to establish “a uniform Registration of the names of all the voters in this State, who possess
the qualifications prescribed in” Article I, §§ 1 and 4. Such registration is “conclusive
evidence . . . of the right of every person . . . to vote at any election thereafter held in this
State.” Nader for President 2004 v. Maryland State Bd. of Elections, 399 Md. 681, 68687 (2007) (alterations in original) (emphasis removed) (quoting Art. I, § 2 of the Md.
Const.).
Under Article I, § 4 of the Maryland Constitution, the only “two instances in which
an individual otherwise qualified to vote may be denied the right to vote” are (1) when that
“person is ‘convicted of an infamous or other serious crime’ or (2) if the person is ‘under
care or guardianship for a mental disability.’” Id. at 687-88 (quoting Art. I, § 4 of the Md.
Const.).
“The Constitution does not require, and, thus, does not allow for the
disqualification of voters, otherwise qualified to vote, on any other basis.” Id. at 688.
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