Voting Rights in America

Voting Rights Timeline

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Vocabulary

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Research Project

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Essential Questions for Voting Rights in the United States

1. Does everyone have the right to vote?
2. Why is voting an important responsibility for citizens?
3. How do voting and elections affect Americans’ everyday lives?
4. How has our country’s history of limiting voting rights changed over time?
5. How might our country be different if the power to vote was still limited to those who had it at the time of the writing of the Constitution?

A History of Voting Rights in the United States

It is vital for students to learn the history of voting rights and to think critically about the government’s and society’s role in suppressing the vote. It is up to these future leaders to continue this fight so that all Americans have the right to vote and are able to have their voices be heard.

When the great American experiment in democracy began in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, only a small minority of Americans actually had the right to vote: white, male, landowners over the age of 21. This purposefully excluded the poor, women and people of color. However, as time went on, society’s views gradually changed and slowly forced the creation of new laws to expand the right to vote. When the Constitution was adopted in 1787, there was no agreement made on a national standard for voting rights. This meant the right to vote was left to the states. In most cases, the right to vote was still only for white, male landowners.

In 1788, the Electoral College was established. Americans do not directly vote for the president of the United States. Instead, their votes determine how electors vote and the electors from each state vote for and elect the president. The Framers argued that this helped to balance the interests of states with lower populations vs. states with higher populations. This compromise aided Southern states who had fewer eligible voters than the Northern states.

When the 1790 Naturalization Law (or the Nationality Act) was passed, only “free white” immigrants could become naturalized citizens. This barred African Americans from the right to vote even if they were free. It also barred Chinese, Mexican, or other people of color from gaining citizenship. African Americans were not allowed citizenship until the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1866. Ratified in 1868, it granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves. Native Americans did not receive full citizenship until 1924 with the Snyder Act. The Snyder Act enforced U.S. citizenship for Native American who retained their own governments and tribal sovereignty. However, because the U.S. Constitution leaves the details of voting up to the states, many Native Americans were still prevented from voting.

In 1848, the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY and was attended by three hundred women including prominent suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. At the convention, they argued for women to gain the right to vote among other demands. However, it wouldn’t be until 1920 and the passing of the 19th Amendment that women would be granted the right to vote.

The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1869, which outlawed discrimination in voting against male citizens based on race, color or previous condition of servitude (people who were formerly enslaved). It was intended to grant Black men the right to vote and was adopted into the U.S. Constitution in 1870. However, in the south, a series of local and state laws soon followed such as poll taxes and literacy tests, as well as violence and intimidation committed by white supremacy terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan. These were deliberate attempts to prevent Black citizens from voting. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. It enforced the 15th Amendment by explicitly stating that obstacles such as literacy tests, complicated ballot instructions or poll taxes were against federal law. It sought to reverse the effects of the many local and state laws created after the 15th Amendment that disenfranchised Black voters.

In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was expanded to include protections for people whose first language is not English (languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). This helped ensure that citizens whose first language was not English would have equal access to voting. In 1982, Congress passed another extension to the Voting Rights Act that extended the law for another 25 years and included requirements for states to take action to make voting more accessible for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Despite all of these positive changes, there’s still work that needs to be done to ensure that all Americans have equal access to the vote. Counties have redrawn their district lines (this is called gerrymandering), which can alter populations and elections. Voter registration purges are also increasingly common, which can make thousands or millions of voters now unable to cast a vote. Strict voter ID laws have also emerged in recent years. In 2018, North Dakota added a new requirement that IDs have a residential address listed in order to vote. This law may prevent hundreds of Native residents from voting because most tribal IDs do not have residential addresses listed, but a PO box instead.

Key Terms for Voting Rights

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