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“Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States,” by Howard Chandler Christy, depicts the Constitutional Convention, held in 1787 in Philadelphia, where the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution.
The struggle for equal voting rights dates to the earliest days of U.S. history. Now, after a period of bipartisan efforts to expand enfranchisement, Americans once again face new obstacles to voting
Challenges to voting rights in this country...are hardly a 21st-century invention. Entrenched groups have long tried to keep the vote out of the hands of the less powerful. Indeed, America began its great democratic experiment in the late 1700s by granting the right to vote to a narrow subset of society — white male landowners. Even as barriers to voting began receding in the ensuing decades, many Southern states erected new ones, such as poll taxes & literacy tests, aimed at keeping the vote out of the hands of African American men.
Over time, voting rights became a bipartisan priority as people worked at all levels to enact constitutional amendments & laws expanding access to the vote based on race & ethnicity, gender, disability, age & other factors. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed by Congress took major steps to curtail voter suppression. Thus began a new era of push-&-pull on voting rights, with the voting age reduced to 18 from 21 & the enshrinement of voting protections for language minorities & people with disabilities.
Greater voter enfranchisement was met with fresh resistance & in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its ruling on Shelby County v. Holder, paving the way for states & jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression to enact restrictive voter identification laws. A group of 23 states created new obstacles to voting in the decade leading up to the 2018 elections, according to the nonpartisan coalition Election Protection.,,
1700s: Voting generally limited to white male property holders
Despite their belief in the virtues of democracy, the founders of the United States accepted & endorsed severe limits on voting. The U.S. Constitution originally left it to states to determine who is qualified to vote in elections. For decades, state legislatures generally restricted voting to white males who owned property. Some states also employed religious tests to ensure that only Christian men could vote.
1800s: Official barriers to voting start to recede
During the early part of the 19th 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 1870. However, in the decades that followed, many states, particularly in the South, used a range of barriers, such as poll taxes & literacy tests, to deliberately reduce voting among African American men.
1920: Women win the vote
Early in the 20th century, women still were only able to vote in a handful of states. After decades of organizing & activism, women nationwide won the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
1960: Southern states ramp up barriers to voting
The struggle for equal voting rights came to a head in the 1960s as many states, particularly in the South, dug in on policies—such as literacy tests, poll taxes, English-language requirements, & more—aimed at suppressing the vote among people of color, immigrants & low-income populations. In March 1965, activists organized protest marches from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery to spotlight the issue of black voting rights. The first march was brutally attacked by police & others on a day that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” After a second march was cut short, a throng of thousands finally made the journey, arriving in Montgomery on March 24 & drawing nationwide attention to the issue.
1964: The 24th amendment targets poll taxes
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 & 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 1962 & ratified by the states two years later. In a 1966 case, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes are unconstitutional in any U.S. election.
1965: The Voting Rights Act passes Congress
Inspired by voting rights marches in Alabama in spring 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. The vote was decisive & bipartisan: 79-18 in the Senate & 328-74 in the House. President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure on August 6 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, & other icons of the civil rights movement at his side. In addition to barring many of the policies & practices that states had been using to limit voting among African Americans & other targeted groups, the Voting Rights Act included provisions that required states & local jurisdictions with a historical pattern of suppressing voting rights based on race to submit changes in their election laws to the U.S. Justice Department for approval (or “preclearance”). In the ensuing decades, the preclearance provisions proved to be a remarkably effective means of discouraging state & local officials from erecting new barriers to voting, stopping the most egregious policies from going forward, & providing communities & civil rights advocates with advance notice of proposed changes that might suppress the vote.
1971: Young people win the vote
For much of the nation’s history, states generally restricted voting to people age 21 & older. But during the 1960s, the movement to lower the voting age gained steam with the rise of student activism & the war in Vietnam, which was fought largely by young, 18-&-over draftees. The 26th amendment prohibited states & the federal government from using age as a reason to deny the vote to anyone 18 years of age & over.
1975: Voting Rights Act expanded to protect language minorities
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 & to provide multilingual assistance at the polls.
1982: Congress requires new voting protections for people with disabilities
Congress passed a law extending the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. As part of the extension, Congress required states to take steps to make voting more accessible for the elderly & people with disabilities.
1993: “Motor Voter” becomes law
Responding to historically low rates of voter registration, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act. Also known as “motor voter,” the law required states to allow citizens to register to vote when they applied for their drivers’ licenses. The law also required states to offer mail-in registration & to allow people to register to vote at offices offering public assistance. In the first year of its implementation, more than 30 million people completed their voter registration applications or updated their registration through means made available because of the law.
2000: Election problems spotlight need for reform
The extremely close Bush-Gore Presidential race led to a recount in the state of Florida that highlighted many of the problems plaguing U.S. elections, from faulty equipment & bad ballot design to inconsistent rules & procedures across local jurisdictions & states. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately intervened to stop the Florida recount & effectively ensuring the election of George W. Bush.
2002: Congress passes the Help America Vote Act
With memories of the problems of the 2000 election still fresh in everyone’s mind, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 with the goal of streamlining election procedures across the nation. The law placed new mandates on states & localities to replace outdated voting equipment, create statewide voter registration lists, & provide provisional ballots to ensure that eligible voters are not turned away if their names are not on the roll of registered voters. The law also was designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to cast private, independent ballots...
June 2013: The Supreme Court strikes a blow to the Voting Right Act
In its June ruling in the case, Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Because of the Court’s decision, states & localities with a history of suppressing voting rights no longer were required to submit changes in their election laws to the U.S. Justice Department for review (or “preclearance”). The 5-4 decision ruled unconstitutional a section of the landmark 1965 law that was key to protecting voters in states & localities with a history of race-based voter suppression. In her dissent in the case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously stated, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked & is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
August 2013: States ramp up barriers to voting
On August 11, North Carolina’s governor signed a voter identification law seen by many as an attempt to suppress the votes of people of color. The North Carolina law was just one of many similar laws passed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2013 Shelby ruling. Texas officials, in fact, acted on the same day of the Shelby decision to institute a strict voter identification law that previously had been blocked under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because of its impact in suppressing the vote of low-income people & racial minorities. After a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups & the U.S. Department of Justice, the North Carolina law was struck down by a federal judge who said it targeted African Americans with “almost surgical precision.” Officials in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida & Virginia shortly joined the ranks of those intent on exercising their newly won power to turn back the clock to an earlier time when election laws & practices in many places were marked by blatant discrimination & racism.
2014: The voting rights movement coalesces to fight suppression
In response to post-Shelby assaults on voting rights, voting rights organizations across the country stepped up their work to protect & advance the right to vote & move us closer to the vision of a nation of, by, & for the people. This work includes litigation to challenge unconstitutional barriers to voting, on-the-ground advocacy to advance pro-voter policies at the local & state levels, & nonpartisan efforts to register, educate & mobilize historically underrepresented populations so they can participate more actively in elections & civic life. The State Infrastructure Fund began convening a cohort of nonprofit public interest litigation groups with the aim of streamlining & coordinating the field’s response to a fresh wave of policies to suppress the vote. Coordinated by the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF), the collaborative of 12 organizations has played an essential role in pushing back against strict voter identification laws, racial gerrymandering, & other tactics aimed at reducing the voting rights of underrepresented populations.
2016: Presidential election & claims of fraud
After President Trump was elected despite losing the popular vote, he & his supporters made claims that large numbers of people voted illegally. A Washington Post analysis was able to find only four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election out of 135 million ballots cast. The narrative about fraud ultimately resulted in President Trump convening the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, which disbanded in January 2018 without presenting any evidence or findings. Continued false claims of rampant voter fraud have added fuel to the fire & prompted even bolder efforts to suppress the vote. Adding to the problems, government at all levels has largely failed to make the necessary investments in elections (from technology to poll worker training) to ensure the integrity & efficiency of the electoral system.
October 2018: State, local officials keep erecting new barriers to voting continue
A 2018 USAToday analysis found that election officials recently have closed thousands of polling places, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color. The polling place closures are just one example of how states & localities have continued to try to suppress the votes of targeted populations. In 2018, for example, the Georgia Senate passed bills cutting voting hours in Atlanta (where African Americans are 54 percent of the population) & restricting early voting on weekends. The latter measure was seen by many as a not-so-subtle attempt to target nonpartisan “Souls to the Polls” events organized by black churches to get their parishioners to vote on Sunday after church. Both Georgia measures were subsequently defeated in the state Assembly.
November 2018: Election draws record number of voters but problems remain
According to early estimates, 116 million voters—nearly half the eligible voting population (49.7 percent)—cast ballots in the 2018 elections. Not only did voter turnout set a 100-year record for midterm races, but the election saw record numbers of women & candidates of color running at all levels. In addition, voters approved a number of important state ballot measures aimed at expanding the electorate & making it easier to vote, including a law in Florida that lifts the permanent ban on voting for people with a felony criminal record. The numbers for 2018 were especially impressive given that many states continue to take aggressive steps to make it harder for people to vote. According to the nonpartisan coalition Election Protection, 23 states created new obstacles to voting in the decade preceding the 2018 election.
2019: Voting rights groups prepare for the 2020 Census & Political redistricting
In the same way that partisan interests & those in power have used voting rights laws & policies to suppress the vote, they also have attempted to use the U.S. Census & the subsequent congressional redistricting process to advance their political goals. The Trump administration, for example, fought unsuccessfully for two years to add a question to the 2020 census asking if someone is a citizen of the United States. Voting rights & civil rights groups said this was a transparent attempt to instill fear in immigrant communities, with the result of undercounting the immigrant population & reducing its political power & voice.
See: Voting. Carnegie Corporation of New York November 18, 2019
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