During the early part of the 19 th century, state legislatures begin to limit the property requirement for voting. Later, during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which ensured that people could not be denied the right to vote because of their race.
The amendment was ratified by the states in However, in the decades that followed, many states, particularly in the South, used a range of barriers, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, to deliberately reduce voting among African American men. Activists stand at a women's suffrage information booth in New York City encouraging people to vote "yes" for women's voting rights in Credit: Bettmann Archive via Getty Images. Early in the 20th century, women still were only able to vote in a handful of states.
After decades of organizing and activism, women nationwide won the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.
Constitution in The struggle for equal voting rights came to a head in the s as many states, particularly in the South, dug in on policies—such as literacy tests, poll taxes, English-language requirements, and more—aimed at suppressing the vote among people of color, immigrants and low-income populations. In March , activists organized protest marches from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery to spotlight the issue of black voting rights.
Poll taxes were a particularly egregious form of voter suppression for a century following the Civil War, forcing people to pay money in order to vote. Payment of the tax was a prerequisite for voter registration in many states. The taxes were expressly designed to keep African Americans and low-income white people from voting. Some states even enacted grandfather clauses to allow many higher-income white people to avoid paying the tax.
The 24th amendment was approved by Congress in and ratified by the states two years later. In a case, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes are unconstitutional in any U. The vote was decisive and bipartisan: in the Senate and in the House. President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure on August 6 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition to barring many of the policies and practices that states had been using to limit voting among African Americans and other targeted groups, the Voting Rights Act included provisions that required states and local jurisdictions with a historical pattern of suppressing voting rights based on race to submit changes in their election laws to the U.
In the ensuing decades, the preclearance provisions proved to be a remarkably effective means of discouraging state and local officials from erecting new barriers to voting, stopping the most egregious policies from going forward, and providing communities and civil rights advocates with advance notice of proposed changes that might suppress the vote. But during the s, the movement to lower the voting age gained steam with the rise of student activism and the war in Vietnam, which was fought largely by young, and-over draftees.
The 26 th amendment prohibited states and the federal government from using age as a reason to deny the vote to anyone 18 years of age and over. Congress added new provisions to the Voting Rights Act to protect members of language minority groups.
The amendments required jurisdictions with significant numbers of voters who have limited or no proficiency in English to provide voting materials in other languages and to provide multilingual assistance at the polls. The 23rd Amendment is ratified, allowing American citizens living in the District of Columbia to vote for president and vice president.
Prior to its passage, D. The 24th Amendment is ratified, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in federal elections. President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law , banning literacy tests and enforcing the 15th Amendment on a federal level. It also provides for federal examiners who can register voters in certain jurisdictions. Facing a flurry of legal challenges, the U. Supreme Court upholds its constitutionality in a number of rulings from In , Section 5 is extended for five years.
Prohibiting discrimination based on age, it lowers the age from 21, largely in reaction to the number of year-olds fighting in Vietnam.
In addition to establishing a permanent ban on literacy tests and other discriminatory voting requirements, amendments to the Voting Rights Act are signed into law by President Gerald Ford requiring districts with significant numbers of non-English-speaking voters to be provided with instructions or assistance in registering and voting. Revisions also reverse recent decisions by the U. Supreme Court, making voting easier for people with disabilities and the elderly. The first entirely mail-in federal primary election took place in the state in , and the first mail-only general election took place in the state in , when Ron Wyden was elected to the U.
Senate to replace Bob Packwood , who resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal. As TIME reported in its recent roundup of state laws for voting by mail in , five states were already holding entirely mail-in elections before the pandemic—Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
Twenty-nine states and Washington D. In the presidential election, about 1 in 4 voters cast their votes via ballots mailed to them. Despite claims of vote fraud when voting is conducted outside of polling places, only 0. Write to Olivia B. The Amendment does not give women the right to vote. In Wyoming Territory women are given the right to vote, and those rights continue after Wyoming becomes a state in Hayes, despite the fact that Samuel Tilden wins the popular vote.
Poll taxes , or tax fees for voting, have been used to discourage poor people from voting. The act enforces the 15th Amendment by explicitly stating that obstacles, such as literacy tests or complicated ballot instructions, are against federal law. The law is meant to resolve the disparity that year-old men are old enough to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, yet did not have the right to vote.
Until now, only white people have been allowed to vote. Supreme Court. Al Gore wins the nation's popular vote, but George W. Bush has the lead in the Electoral College. The vote in Florida is too close to call and plagued with voting irregularities. The recount must be done by the state's deadline to cast their Electoral College vote, so the Florida Supreme Court votes to extend the deadline.
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