Between and , a revolution took place in American politics. In most states, property qualifications for voting and officeholding were repealed; and voting by voice was largely eliminated. Direct methods of selecting presidential electors, county officials, state judges, and governors replaced indirect methods.
Because of these and other political innovations, voter participation skyrocketed. By voting participation had reached unprecedented levels. Nearly 80 percent of adult white males went to the polls. A new two-party system, made possible by an expanded electorate, replaced the politics of deference to and leadership by elites. By the mids, two national political parties with marked philosophical differences, strong organizations, and wide popular appeal competed in virtually every state.
Professional party managers used partisan newspapers, speeches, parades, rallies, and barbecues to mobilize popular support. Our modern political system had been born. The Expansion of Voting Rights The most significant political innovation of the early nineteenth century was the abolition of property qualifications for voting and officeholding.
Hard times resulting from the panic of led many people to demand an end to property restrictions on voting and officeholding. In New York, for example, fewer than two adult males in five could legally vote for senator or governor. Under the new constitution adopted in , all adult white males were allowed to vote, so long as they paid taxes or had served in the militia.
By , universal white manhood suffrage had largely become a reality. Only three states--Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Virginia--still restricted the suffrage to white male property owners and taxpayers. The struggle for equal voting rights dates to the earliest days of U. 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, like the ones we've seen recently, 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 s 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 and 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 and laws expanding access to the vote based on race and ethnicity, gender, disability, age and other factors.
The landmark Voting Rights Act of passed by Congress took major steps to curtail voter suppression. Thus began a new era of push-and-pull on voting rights, with the voting age reduced to 18 from 21 and the enshrinement of voting protections for language minorities and people with disabilities. Greater voter enfranchisement was met with fresh resistance and in , the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its ruling on Shelby County v. Holder , paving the way for states and jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression to enact restrictive voter identification laws.
A whopping 23 states created new obstacles to voting in the decade leading up to the elections, according to the nonpartisan coalition Election Protection. These activities have a demonstrable and disproportionate effect on populations that are already underrepresented at the polls.
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 and efficiency of the system. Despite their belief in the virtues of democracy, the founders of the United States accepted and endorsed severe limits on voting. The U. 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. 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. She is turned away. The Supreme Court rules that Native Americans are not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment and, thus, cannot vote. Dawes Act passed. It grants citizenship to Native Americans who give up their tribal affiliations. Wyoming admitted to statehood and becomes first state to legislate voting for women in its constitution. The Indian Naturalization Act grants citizenship to Native Americans whose applications are approved - similar to the process of immigrant naturalisation.
Supreme Court rules that people of Japanese heritage are ineligible to become naturalised citizens. In the next year, the court finds that "Asian Indians" are also not eligible to naturalise. The Indian Citizenship Act grants citizenship to Native Americans, but many states nonetheless make laws and policies that prohibit Native Americans from voting. While attempting to register to vote in Birmingham, Alabama, a group of African American women are beaten by election officials.
McCarran-Walter Act grants all people of Asian ancestry the right to become citizens. But to this day, the district's residents - nearly half of whom are African-American - still do not have voting representation in Congress. Large-scale efforts in the South to register African Americans to vote are intensified. However, state officials refuse to allow African Americans to register by using voting taxes, literacy tests and violent intimidation.
Among the efforts launched is Freedom Summer, in which nearly a thousand civil rights workers of all races and backgrounds converge on the South to support voting rights. It guarantees that the right to vote in federal elections will not be denied because of failure to pay any tax.
Voting Rights Act passed. It forbids states from imposing discriminatory restrictions on who can vote, and provides mechanisms for the federal government to enforce its provisions. The Voting Rights Act of and subsequent laws passed in , and built stronger voting protections to allow Native Americans to vote without intimidation, literacy tests, poll taxes and fraud. The next day, nearly 4, African Americans register to vote. Other civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
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