Claim: Voting rights in Singapore is impacted by Paines view, and the Supreme Court says that representative democracy does not appear in the Constitution of Singapore.
Evidence: The right to vote in Singapore is not explicitly stated in Singapore's Constitution, but the Government has expressed the view that it may be inferred from the fact that Singapore is a representative democracy and from specific constitutional provisions, including Articles 65 and 66 which set out requirements for the prorogation and dissolution of Parliament and the holding of general elections. It has been suggested by law academic Thio Li-ann that, if called upon to decide the issue, the court might infer the existence of the right to vote in the Constitution from its text and structure, and from the fact that it is an adaptation of the Westminster system of democracy. Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, said that the right to vote is critical in the protection of individual freedoms. Paine's view was that there is no justification for one part of a community to deny another its right to vote on any basis, whether class, race, religion or political creed. In the United States Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: The term representative democracy does not appear in the Constitution of Singapore. The Constitution also states that "[t]he President shall be elected by the citizens of Singapore in accordance with any law made by the Legislature", and requires a poll for the election to be held not more than three months before the incumbent's term of office expires, or, if the office is vacated before the expiry date, within six months of the date when it becomes vacant. In addition, in the Proclamation of Singapore contained in the Independence of Singapore Agreement, which was entered into by the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore to effect Singapore's separation from Malaysia, the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew proclaimed on behalf of the people and the Government that as from 9 August 1965 "Singapore shall be forever a sovereign democratic and independent nation ...".