The G.I. Vote in Texas

One of U.S. history's most enduring trends is the ever-expanding right of suffrage. To be sure, almost every state still denies the vote to telons and mental defectives; eight states also exclude paupers. The same goes officially for Mississippi's nontaxed Indians and unofficially for most of its Negroes, who comprise 45% of the population. Still disqualified in Nevada and Virginia are "those engaging in duels" and in Florida "persons interested in any wager depending on the result of any election." But more typical of the trend is a new federal court order forbidding Texas to disqualify thousands of regular residents who happen to be U.S. servicemen from other states.

The only state enforcing this policy, Texas has disenfranchised such voters ever since the Texas Republic's early 19th century founders worried that U.S. soldiers might be marched in to vote them out. Though it counted servicemen as part of its population in congressional apportionment, Texas extended suffrage only to the minority who entered the service from the Texas county in which they were stationed. As recently as last April, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the state's right to "prevent concentrations of military voting strength in areas where military bases are located."

All this seemed "like a slap in the face" to Staff Sergeant James R. Mabry, 27, who entered the Air Force from Wisconsin. Like most non-Texan servicemen in Texas, Mabry did not vote by absentee ballot in his home state. Moreover, he has been stationed in Bexar County (San Antonio) since 1959, owns a home there on which he pays taxes like any other resident. Yet last January, when he and his wife paid poll taxes, Mabry's receipt (unlike his wife's) was stamped "not eligible to vote." Precisely the same thing happened to his friend, Air Force Lieut. David M. Sneary, 26, a former Oklahoman.

With the aid of 100 friendly Texans who donated $500, Mabry and Sneary appealed to a three-judge federal court in San Antonio. Result: an injunction, based on the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause, forbidding Texas to deny suffrage to anyone "entering military service as a resident citizen of another state, who otherwise in good faith meets all of the requirements of a qualified elector in this state." Texas may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but meanwhile at least 25,000 servicemen hope soon to exercise the right to vote in elections in Texas.

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