•
•
Vote less than any other people in Western
societies. Half of registered voters actually vote
in presidential elections, and fewer vote in state
and local elections.
The only restrictions on voting are the insane,
convicted felons, and the young


In the past, women, paupers, AfricanAmericans, Native Americans, Asian
immigrants, and other groups were denied
the right to vote.
There were religious tests, property
qualifications, literacy tests, poll taxes, and
exclusions on the grounds of race and sex.

The United States was the first nation to
expand the vote to virtually all white men, but
it has also undergone periods in which voting
rights were restricted, and it was one of the
last Western nations to guarantee the vote to
all citizens.
•
•
The basic principle that governed voting in
colonial America was that voters should have
a "stake in society."
Leading colonists associated democracy with
disorder and mob rule, and believed that the
vote should be restricted to those who owned
property or paid taxes.
– Each of the thirteen colonies required voters either
to own a certain amount of land or personal
property, or to pay a specified amount in taxes.


Many colonies imposed other restrictions on
voting, including religious tests. Catholics
were barred from voting in five colonies and
Jews in four.
In frontier areas, seventy to eighty percent of
white men could vote. But in some cities, the
percentage was just forty to fifty percent.
•
•
The American Revolution was fought in part
over the issue of voting.
The Revolutionaries rejected the British
argument that representation in Parliament
could be virtual.
– Meaning that English members of Parliament could
adequately represent the interests of the colonists
•
Instead, the Revolutionaries argued that
government derived its legitimacy from the
consent of the governed.
•
During the period immediately following the
Revolution, some states replaced property
qualifications with taxpaying requirements.
– "no taxation without representation."
•
•
Other states allowed anyone who served in
the army or militia to vote.
Vermont was the first state to eliminate all
property and taxpaying qualifications for
voting.

By 1790, all states had eliminated religious
requirements for voting.
◦ Approximately sixty to seventy percent of adult
white men could now vote.

During this time, Maryland, Massachusetts,
New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and
Vermont permitted free African-Americans to
vote.


The U.S. constitution left the issue of voting
rights up to the states
Constitution said those entitled to vote for
the “most numerous branch of the state
legislature” could vote for members of the
house of representatives
•
During the first half of the nineteenth century,
the election process changed dramatically.
– Voting by voice was replaced by voting by written ballot.
– The abolition of property qualifications for voting and
office holding.
•
•
•
By 1830 ten states permitted white manhood
suffrage without qualification
After 1840, mainly in the Midwest states, allowed
immigrants who intended to become citizens to
vote.
In 1860, five states limited suffrage to taxpayers
and only two still imposed property
qualifications.
•
Pressure for expansion of voting rights came
from…
– Property less men
– territories eager to attract settlers
– political parties seeking to broaden their base
•
•
Ironically, the period that saw the advent of
universal white manhood suffrage also saw new
restrictions imposed on voting by AfricanAmericans.
Every new state that joined the Union after 1819
explicitly denied blacks the right to vote.
– In 1855, only Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Vermont allowed African-Americans
to vote without significant restrictions.


In New Jersey (the one state that had allowed
women property holders to vote) women lost
the right to vote
After 1830 interest in voting registration
increased
•
•
The transition from property qualifications to
universal white manhood suffrage occurred
gradually, without violence and with surprisingly
little dissension
Except in Rhode Island, where lack of progress
toward democratization provoked an episode
known as the Dorr War.
•
In 1841, Rhode Island, still operating under a
Royal Charter granted in 1663, restricted
suffrage to landowners and their eldest sons.
– The charter lacked a bill of rights and grossly
underrepresented growing industrial cities in the state
legislature
•
•
In 1841, Thomas W. Dorr, a Harvard-educated
attorney, organized an extralegal convention to frame
a new state constitution and abolish voting
restrictions.
The state's governor declared Dorr and his
supporters guilty of insurrection, proclaimed a state
of emergency, and called out the state militia.
•
Dorr tried unsuccessfully to capture the state arsenal
at Providence.
– He was arrested, found guilty of high treason, and
sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.
– To appease popular resentment, the governor pardoned
Dorr the next year, and the state adopted a new
constitution in 1843

This constitution extended the vote to all
taxpaying native-born adult males
◦ Including African Americans
◦ But it imposed property requirements and lengthy
residence requirements on immigrants.

Rhode Island was unusual in having a large
urban, industrial, and foreign-born working
class
The Civil War and Reconstruction
• Although Abraham Lincoln had spoken about
extending the vote to black soldiers, opposition to
granting suffrage to African-American men was
strong in the North.
• Between 1863 and 1870, fifteen Northern states and
territories rejected proposals to extend suffrage to
African-Americans.
•
During Reconstruction a growing number of
Republicans began to favor extending the vote to
African-American men.
– Many believed that African-Americans needed the vote to
protect their rights.
– Some felt that black suffrage would allow the Republican
party to build a base in the South.
•
The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required the
former Confederate states to approve new
constitutions.
– Which were to be ratified by an electorate that included
black as well as white men.
•
In 1868, the Republican party went further and
called for a Fifteenth Amendment that would
prohibit states from denying the vote based on
race or previous condition of servitude.
•
A variety of methods were used by Southern
whites to reduce the level of black voting.
– Including, violence in which hundreds of AfricanAmericans were murdered, property qualification laws,
gerrymandering, and fraud
•
In 1890, Mississippi pioneered new methods to
prevent African-Americans from voting.
– Including, lengthy residence requirements, poll taxes,
literacy tests, property requirements, cumbersome
registration procedures, and laws disenfranchising voters
for minor criminal offenses.
•
Because of this, black voting was drastically
decreased.
•
•
•
In Mississippi, just 9,000 of 147,000 AfricanAmericans of voting age were qualified to vote.
In Louisiana, the number of black registered voters
fell from 130,000 to 1,342.
Grandfather clauses in these states exempted whites
from all residence, poll tax, literacy, and property
requirements if their ancestors had voted prior to
enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment.
•
Fears of corruption and of fraudulent voting led a
number of Northern and Western states to enact
"reforms" similar to those in the South.
– Reforms included pre-election registration, long
residence qualifications, revocation of state laws that
permitted non-citizens to vote, disfranchisement of
felons, and adoption of the Australian ballot (which
required voters to place a mark by the name of the
candidate they wished to vote for).
•
•
•
By the 1920s, thirteen Northern and Western
states barred illiterate adults from voting
Many Western states prohibited Asians from
voting.
1944- Smith v. Allwright
– U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas's Democratic party
could not restrict membership to whites only and bar
blacks from voting in the party's primary.
•
•
In 1946, a presidentially appointed National
Committee on Civil Rights called for abolition of
poll taxes and for federal action to protect the
voting rights of African-Americans and Native
Americans.
At the end of the 1950s, seven Southern states
used literacy tests to keep blacks from voting.
– Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina
South Carolina, and Virginia
•
Five states used poll taxes to prevent blacks from
registering.
– Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia
•
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 allowed the Justice
Department to seek injunctions and file suits in
voting rights cases.
– It only increased voting by about 200,000.
•
To bring the issue of voting rights to national
attention, Martin Luther King, Jr., launched a
voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, in
early 1965.
– For seven weeks, King led hundreds of Selma's black
residents to the county courthouse to register to vote.
– Nearly 2,000 black demonstrators, including King, were
jailed
•
On March 7, 1965, black voting-rights
demonstrators, lead by King, prepared to march
from Selma to Montgomery, fifty miles away.
– As they crossed a bridge spanning the Alabama River,
200 state police with tear gas, nightsticks, and whips
attacked them.
– The march resumed on March 21 with federal protection
– "Segregation's got to fall ... you never can jail us all.”
•
On March 25, a crowd of 25,000 gathered at the
state capitol to celebrate the march's completion.
– Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the crowd and called
for an end to segregated schools, poverty, and voting
discrimination
– "I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' ...
How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.''
•
On January 23, 1965, the states completed
ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to
the Constitution barring a poll tax in federal
elections.
– At that time, five Southern states still had poll taxes.
•
On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act, which prohibited literacy tests
and sent federal examiners to seven Southern
states to register black voters.
•
•
Within a year, 450,000 Southern blacks
registered to vote.
The Supreme Court ruled that literacy tests were
illegal in areas where schools had been
segregated, struck down laws restricting the vote
to property-owners or tax-payers, and held that
lengthy residence rules for voting were
unconstitutional.
•
The court also ruled in the "one-man, one-vote“.
– States could not give rural voters a disproportionate
sway in state legislatures.
•
Meanwhile, the states eliminated laws that
disenfranchised paupers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBH_7xc
mFyY&feature=PlayList&p=E34CC2058A2F56
2F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7
•
After WW II, a new generation of Latinos
returned to America from their oversea
duties.
– They came back with new ideas about their
freedoms as citizens, particularly their right to vote.
•
After the wars, Mexican-Americans veterans
attended many local and national colleges
and universities.
– Armed with the weapon of education, the veterans
formed organizations that advocated for Hispanic
voting rights in many parts of the country.

The G.I. Bill Act of June 22, 1944
(Servicemen’s Readjustment Act )- put higher
education within the reach of thousands of
Chicano veterans.
◦ The Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of
1952- provided similar privileges to Korean War
veterans
•
•
The American G.I. Forum, founded in March 1948,
was created because a local funeral home denied a
decorated, Latino veteran to be buried there.
The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA),
founded in Fresno, California was founded in 1959
and drew up a plan for direct electoral politics.
– MAPA soon became the primary political voice for the
Mexican-American community of California.
•
One of the primary Latino organizations contributing
to increased Latino voter registration was the
Southwest Voter Registration Education Project
(SVREP).
– the SVREP conducted 2,200 voter registration campaigns in
fourteen states and initiated “Get-the-vote-out” campaigns
throughout the Southwest.
•
In 1981, the National Association of Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials Educational
Fund (NALEO) was established to promote the
integration of Latino immigrants into
American society and encourage them to
become citizens so that they might
participate in the electoral process.
•
The efforts of MAPA, SVREP, NALEO, CSO and
several dynamic individuals helped increase
in the Latino electorate that took place
between 1960 and 2000.
•
Voting Rights Act (1965)
– On January 23, 1964, the U.S. Congress ratified the
Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
– The Voting Rights Act suspended or banned literacy
tests and other racially discriminatory devices, and it
guaranteed direct federal supervision of voter
registration, voting procedures, and elections in seven
Southern states and several non-Southern states as well.

Voting Rights Act (1965) cont.
◦ Gave African Americans access to the voting booth in
places where access had previously been denied to
them. The law was so effective that a quarter of a
million new Black voters had been registered to vote by
the end of the year.
•
The Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund (MALDEF) soon began to lobby
intensely for the extension of the Voting Rights
Act (VRA) to Latinos.
– Congress responded to these lobbying efforts in 1975
by amending the Voting Rights Act to include provisions
that affected Latinos and “minority-language citizens.”
•
According to census information, the Latino
population reached 35,305,818 in 2000,
representing 12.5% of the national population.
– Voter registration of Latinos has increased dramatically
in the last decade and political candidates from all
parties have begun to recognize that the highly diverse
Latino population cannot be ignored nor can it be taken
for granted.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX1N8Db
pnWY - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mymz8ha
u9Go&feature=channel – Part II
A Class Apart Video Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQwSGdF4e
FI


Eighty years ago, with the passage of the
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, 6 Native
Americans were first granted U.S. citizenship
and the corollary right to vote.
◦ However, voting procedures are delegated to the
states, and well past 1924 some states misused this
power to continue to deny Native Americans the
right to vote.
•
Historically, there were four major arguments
used by states to justify their continued
disenfranchisement of Native voters:
◦ Indians were under federal guardianship, or were
federal "wards," and therefore not independent
and competent for voting
◦ Indians living on reservation lands were residents
of their reservation and not of the state (even
though the Supreme Court declared all
reservation Indians residents of their states in
1881)
◦ Indians did not pay state taxes and, therefore,
should not be able to affect revenue decisions
◦ Indians were not "civilized," and their continued
participation in their Tribal communities
precluded participation in other elections
•
It was this last legal prohibition, the
requirement that Native Americans be
"civilized" before being granted the right to
vote, that compounded the already complex
and difficult issue of citizenship and civil
participation for Natives.
– Some believed that accepting citizenship with the
government that had oppressed their community
seemed tantamount to treason, or, foolishness.
•
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). In the 1950s
and 1960s states slowly removed overt attempts
at disenfranchising Native voters.
– The VRA, among other things, prohibits any voting law or
practice that "results" in discrimination on account of race,
color, or language, and it has provided Native communities
with a very powerful tool to ensure that the past practices
of discrimination cease.
– Several key provisions of the VRA are up for reauthorization
in August 2007.
•
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993
(NVRA), also known as the "Motor Voter" act,
has helped enhance voting opportunities for
every American.
•
The two major provisions in the act were
the…
– "motor voter" provision, which requires
Departments of Motor Vehicles to offer to register
citizens to vote
– The mail-in voter registration provision, which
allows citizens to simply mail in their voter
registration form.
•
•
In response to voting irregularities in the 2000
Presidential election, Congress passed HAVA.
HAVA contains a number of provisions to
enhance electoral participation, including…
– funds to encourage states to upgrade their voting
technology
– the establishment of the Election Assistance
Commission
– the requirement of "provisional" ballots for voters
– the centralization of state voter registration
systems.
•
Even with all of the success resulting from recent
legislative protections and litigation, a number of
legal and cultural obstacles continue to hinder
full enfranchisement of America's Native
community.
– Vote dilution. Electoral systems continue to be designed
in manners that result in diluting the strength of the
Native voice. At-large and multi-member voting
districts, discriminatory reapportionment plans, and
staggered terms can all have a negative effect on the
ability of Native communities to have their electoral
voice heard.
– Voter suppression tactics. Unfortunately, as the Native
voting population turns out in larger numbers, attention
to their voting influence can also attract efforts to
discourage them on election day.
•
Linguistic barriers
– Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides for language
protections for many Native communities. Efforts are
made during each election cycle to ensure that language
assistance is actually made available to Native voters
•
Distant poll locations
– Much of Indian Country is in very rural and remote
locations. Limited state resources often place polling
precincts over 60 miles from voters. With no public
transportation on most reservations, limited resources
for gas money, and often inhospitable weather in
November, distant polls often mean disenfranchisement
for Native Americans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlOjwI5F8
Fw
•
•
Suffragettes waged a relentless joint campaign
for both an end to slavery and extended rights
for women and African-Americans.
As a matter of fact, the first Women's Rights
Convention in 1848 was held mainly as a result
of female delegates being denied admission to
an abolitionist convention.
– The convention produced a written set of principles on
women's rights called the Declaration of Sentiments,
which closely resembled Thomas Jefferson's Declaration
of Independence in its style and structure.
•
It was the first time that women publicly
demanded the right to vote.


It took 70 years after the first formal
women’s convention in 1848 for the 19th
amendment to change.
Why so long?
•
•
In 1866, the American Equal Rights Association was
founded with Lucretia Mott as president to secure
civil rights for all Americans regardless of race, color,
or gender.
However, after the Civil War the suffragettes and the
African-American Civil Rights Movement seemed to
part ways when the new 14th Amendment granted
suffrage only to former male slaves.
•
•
The suffragettes resorted mainly to civil disobedience
and formal appearances before state and national
congressional committees to advance their
objectives.
In 1866, Stanton tested an obscure 1788 law allowing
women to stand for election by running for Congress.
– She received only 24 out of 121,000 votes.

The National Women’s Suffrage Association
◦ Led by Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
◦ Had a more radical approach

American Women Suffrage Association
◦ Led by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell
◦ Had a more conservative approach

And in 1890 they banned together to form
the National American Woman Suffrage
Association

A younger generation of leaders took stand in
the organization
◦ Leaders, Carrie Chapman Catt and Maud Wood Park
organized in every congressional district and
lobbying in the nation’s capital
 An intelligent tactic because in order to make a law or
amendment change, you must talk to the people that
can help make the change happen.
◦ Leaders, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Harriot E.
Blatch (Stanton’s daughter) appealed to younger
generation

Radicals often led
marches, picketed and
protested in other
forms.
◦ Many were placed in jail,
and of those some even
stuck to their belief that
women should be able
to vote by leading
hunger strikes while
jailed.
http://lwvnet.org/tn/nashville/files/the_history_of
_womens_suffrage.pdf
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.albany.edu/~eb7540/women.jpg&imgrefurl=htt
p://www.albany.edu/~eb7540/pathfinder.html&usg=__KPi9SThlFzNvP0fDXM1oGyLrdu8=&h=401&
w=571&sz=71&hl=en&start=4&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=vpW_jv6OUwKtlM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=134&prev=
/images%3Fq%3Dwomen%2527s%2Bsuffrage%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IESearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GGLL_en%26um%3D1
•
A year later, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, who
radically retained her maiden name after marriage,
addressed a subcommittee of the New York Constitutional
Convention to request an amendment guaranteeing
women's suffrage in the newly revised state constitution.
– The appeal failed.
•
•
In 1918 the House passed a resolution for women's
suffrage, which the Senate quickly defeated.
However, in 1919 the 19th Amendment granting women
the right to vote was adopted by a joint resolution of
Congress and sent to the states for ratification.
– Twenty-two states ratified it.
•
On August 26, 1920, women's suffrage became a legal
right of citizenship for women nationally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiadX_0J8
eA
•
•
The war in Vietnam fueled the notion that young
people who were young enough to die for their
country were old enough to vote.
In 1970, as part of an extension of the Voting Rights
Act, a provision was added lowering the voting age to
eighteen.
•
•
The Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the
power to reduce the voting age only in federal
elections, not in state elections.
To prevent states from having to maintain two
different voting rolls, the Twenty-sixth Amendment
to the Constitution barred the states and the federal
government from denying the vote to anyone
eighteen or older.
•
•
The history of voting rights is not yet over. Even
today, debate continues.
One of the most heated debates is whether or not
convicted felons who have served their time be
allowed to vote.
– Today, a handful of states bar convicted felons from voting
unless they successfully petition to have their voting rights
restored.
•
•
Another controversy is whether non-citizens should
have the right to vote, for example, in local school
board elections.
In short, the debate about what it means to be a truly
democratic society remains an ongoing, unfinished,
story.
Voting Rights for Ex Felons
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHZHoe4e
HRA
Young Voters
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHH7s7H
h_n4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oUOCqTZWY– Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWdA2ab
1Qpk&feature=related – Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmYo5xct
aNY&feature=related – Part 3






The following American Government students
participated in the development of this
presentation
Lisbeth Mena
Kristen Douglas
Marisa Lewis
Kelsey Martin
Careena Larrabee