To the editor:

The constitutional amendment on the ballot is a recasting of the current section 1 of article 5. The amendment says: noncitizens cannot vote. The current section 1 of article 5 says: citizens can vote, i.e., it proclaims a guaranteed right. The amendment, focused as it is on who cannot vote, encourages efforts to make voter registration more difficult by requiring stringent ways to prove citizenship. For example, married women who’ve changed their birth names would have to prove who they are. Also, because it removes the guaranteed right, it opens the door to creating classes of citizens who cannot vote. For an example of what this might mean, consider household voting — each household gets one vote. In case that sounds weird to you, you should know that in certain right-wing circles it is considered desirable.

Judy Roitman,

Lawrence