what gartns us citizens the right to vote
Challenges to voting rights in this country, like the ones we've seen recently, are hardly a 21st-century invention. Entrenched groups take long tried to proceed the vote out of the easily of the less powerful. Indeed, America began its bully democratic experiment in the late 1700s by granting the right to vote to a narrow subset of order — 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 ramble amendments and laws expanding admission to the vote based on race and ethnicity, gender, disability, historic period and other factors. The landmark Voting Rights Human action of 1965 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 xviii from 21 and the enshrinement of voting protections for linguistic communication minorities and people with disabilities.
Greater voter enfranchisement was met with fresh resistance and in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its ruling on Shelby County five. Holder, paving the style 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 2018 elections, co-ordinate to the nonpartisan coalition Ballot Protection.
These activities take a demonstrable and disproportionate effect on populations that are already underrepresented at the polls. Adding to the issues, regime at all levels has largely failed to make the necessary investments in elections (from technology to poll-worker preparation) to ensure the integrity and efficiency of the system.
1700s: Voting generally limited to white property holders
This 1940 oil painting, "Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the The states," by Howard Chandler Christy, depicts the Constitutional Convention, held in 1787 in Philadelphia, where the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution. (Photo: Wikimedia)
Despite their conventionalities in the virtues of commonwealth, the founders of the United States accepted and 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 as well employed religious tests to ensure that only Christian men could vote.
1800s: Official barriers to voting start to recede
This 19th-century illustrated engraving shows blackness men recently emancipated from slavery participating in an ballot in New Orleans in 1867. (Photograph: Wikimedia)
During the early role of the 19th century, state legislatures begin to limit the property requirement for voting. Afterwards, during the Reconstruction period following the Ceremonious War, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which ensured that people could not be denied the correct to vote because of their race. The amendment was ratified by the states in 1870. However, in the decades that followed, many states, specially in the S, used a range of barriers, such equally poll taxes and literacy tests, to deliberately reduce voting among African American men.
1920: Women win the vote
Early in the 20th century, women nonetheless 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.Southward. Constitution in 1920.
1960: Southern states ramp up barriers to voting
Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott Male monarch pb a black voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the land majuscule in Montgomery. (Photo: William Lovelace /Express/Getty Images)
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 every bit literacy tests, poll taxes, English-language requirements, and more—aimed at suppressing the vote amidst people of color, immigrants and 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 and others on a day that came to be known every bit "Bloody Sunday." After a 2d march was cut short, a throng of thousands finally made the journeying, arriving in Montgomery on March 24 and drawing nationwide attending to the issue.
1964: The 24th amendment targets poll taxes
A man sells poll tax pledges in 1947. (Photo: Jack Birns/The LIFE Images Drove via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Poll taxes were a particularly egregious class of voter suppression for a century post-obit the Civil State of war, forcing people to pay coin 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 taxation. The 24th amendment was approved by Congress in 1962 and ratified by the states two years later on. In a 1966 case, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes are unconstitutional in whatsoever U.Southward. election.
1965: The Voting Rights Act passes Congress
A grouping of voters line upwardly outside the polling station in Peachtree, Alabama, a year after the Voting Rights Act was passed. (Photograph: MPI/Getty Images)
Inspired past voting rights marches in Alabama in spring 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Deed. The vote was decisive and bipartisan: 79-18 in the Senate and 328-74 in the House. President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure on August 6 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and other icons of the civil rights movement at his side. 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 Deed 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.S. Justice Department for approval (or "preclearance"). In the ensuing decades, the preclearance provisions proved to be a remarkably constructive means of discouraging land and local officials from erecting new barriers to voting, stopping the most egregious policies from going frontward, and providing communities and civil rights advocates with advance notice of proposed changes that might suppress the vote.
1971: Young people win the vote
President Richard Nixon signs the 26th Amendment bringing down the voting age to 18 from 21. (Photograph: UPI/Getty Images)
For much of the nation's history, states generally restricted voting to people age 21 and older. Just during the 1960s, the movement to lower the voting age gained steam with the rise of educatee activism and the war in Vietnam, which was fought largely by young, eighteen-and-over draftees. The 26th amendment prohibited states and the federal government from using age as a reason to deny the vote to anyone 18 years of historic period and over.
1975: Voting Rights Human action expanded to protect linguistic communication minorities
A woman walks past a sample ballot in Castilian at a polling station in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm /AFP via Getty Images)
Congress added new provisions to the Voting Rights Deed to protect members of linguistic communication minority groups. The amendments required jurisdictions with pregnant numbers of voters who accept limited or no proficiency in English language to provide voting materials in other languages and to provide multilingual assistance at the polls.
1982: Congress requires new voting protections for people with disabilities
A disabled man casts his ballot. (Photo: David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Congress passed a law extending the Voting Rights Deed for another 25 years. Equally office of the extension, Congress required states to take steps to brand voting more than attainable for the elderly and people with disabilities.
1993: "Motor Voter" becomes law
A man registers to vote at the Jefferson County Department of Motor Vehicles in Arvada, Colorado. (Photo: Joe Amon/The Denver Mail via Getty Images)
Responding to historically depression rates of voter registration, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act. As well known every bit "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 and to allow people to register to vote at offices offering public assistance. In the first year of its implementation, more 30 million people completed their voter registration applications or updated their registration through ways fabricated available because of the law.
2000: Election problems spotlight demand for reform
A judge on the the Broward County Canvassing Lath uses a magnifying glass to examine a dimpled chad on a punch carte du jour ballot during a vote recount in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after the contested 2000 presidential election. (Photo: Robert King/Newsmakers/Getty Images)
The extremely shut Bush-Gore Presidential race led to a recount in the state of Florida that highlighted many of the issues plaguing U.S. elections, from faulty equipment and bad ballot design to inconsistent rules and procedures across local jurisdictions and states. The U.Southward. Supreme Courtroom ultimately intervened to terminate the Florida recount and finer ensuring the ballot of George W. Bush.
2002: Congress passes the Assistance America Vote Act
A woman inserts her election into the machine afterwards voting. (Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)
With memories of the problems of the 2000 election still fresh in everyone'due south listen, Congress passed the Assist America Vote Human activity in 2002 with the goal of streamlining ballot procedures across the nation. The law placed new mandates on states and localities to supersede outdated voting equipment, create statewide voter registration lists, and provide provisional ballots to ensure that eligible voters are non turned abroad if their names are non on the curl of registered voters. The law also was designed to make information technology easier for people with disabilities to cast private, independent ballots.
2010: Philanthropy embraces need for reform
Voters expect in line to bandage a vote in Miami, Florida. (Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Along with a core group of other funders, the Carnegie Corporation of New York began investing in voting rights and elections piece of work in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. All the same, information technology wasn't until the early years of the 21st century that funders started to work more intentionally together in their support for voting rights. A key vehicle for commonage funder activeness on these issues is the State Infrastructure Fund (SIF), a collaborative fund administered past NEO Philanthropy. The fund was created in 2010 and has raised more than $56 million from an expanding list of funders to invest in advancing voting rights and expanding voting among historically underrepresented communities.
June 2013: The Supreme Court strikes a blow to the Voting Right Deed
Holding images of murdered Mississippi civil rights worker Medgar Evers, demonstrators gather as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder. (Photo: Fleck Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In its June ruling in the example, Shelby County five. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Because of the Court's determination, states and 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 v-4 conclusion ruled unconstitutional a section of the landmark 1965 law that was key to protecting voters in states and localities with a history of race-based voter suppression. In her dissent in the example, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously stated, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because y'all are not getting moisture."
August 2013: States ramp upward barriers to voting
North Carolina State Academy students wait in line to vote in Raleigh, Northward Carolina, shortly later on the land passed its stringent voter ID law disqualifying student ID cards equally an accustomed form of voter identification. (Photograph: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
On August xi, North Carolina'due south governor signed a voter identification law seen past many as an attempt to suppress the votes of people of colour. The Northward 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 conclusion to institute a strict voter identification law that previously had been blocked under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Human action because of its touch on in suppressing the vote of low-income people and racial minorities. After a lawsuit filed past ceremonious rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice, the North Carolina law was struck downwardly by a federal judge who said it targeted African Americans with "nigh surgical precision." Officials in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Virginia soon joined the ranks of those intent on exercising their newly won power to turn dorsum the clock to an earlier time when election laws and practices in many places were marked past blatant discrimination and racism.
2014: The voting rights motility coalesces to fight suppression
Cuban Americans vote at a polling center in Miami'south Little Havana, Florida. (Photo: Rhona Wise/AFP via Getty Images)
In response to mail-Shelby assaults on voting rights, voting rights organizations across the country stepped up their piece of work to protect and accelerate the right to vote and motility united states closer to the vision of a nation of, by, and for the people. This piece of work includes litigation to challenge unconstitutional barriers to voting, on-the-ground advocacy to advance pro-voter policies at the local and country levels, and nonpartisan efforts to register, brainwash and mobilize historically underrepresented populations so they can participate more than actively in elections and civic life. The State Infrastructure Fund began convening a cohort of nonprofit public involvement litigation groups with the aim of streamlining and coordinating the field's response to a fresh moving ridge of policies to suppress the vote. Coordinated by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the collaborative of 12 organizations has played an essential function in pushing dorsum against strict voter identification laws, racial gerrymandering, and other tactics aimed at reducing the voting rights of underrepresented populations.
2016: Presidential election and claims of fraud
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence attend the outset meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
After President Trump was elected despite losing the popular vote, he and his supporters fabricated claims that big numbers of people voted illegally. A Washington Postal serviceanalysis was able to find but four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election out of 135 million ballots cast. The narrative almost fraud ultimately resulted in President Trump convening the Presidential Commission on Ballot Integrity, which disbanded in Jan 2018 without presenting any evidence or findings. Continued false claims of rampant voter fraud accept added fuel to the burn and prompted even bolder efforts to suppress the vote. Adding to the problems, government at all levels has largely failed to brand the necessary investments in elections (from technology to poll worker training) to ensure the integrity and efficiency of the electoral organisation.
October 2018: State, local officials continue erecting new barriers to voting continue
A long line forms exterior the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
A 2018 USATodayanalysis establish that election officials recently have closed thousands of polling places, with a disproportionate impact on communities of colour. The polling place closures are merely ane case of how states and localities have continued to effort 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) and restricting early voting on weekends. The latter mensurate was seen by many as a not-so-subtle attempt to target nonpartisan "Souls to the Polls" events organized by black churches to go their parishioners to vote on Sunday subsequently church building. Both Georgia measures were subsequently defeated in the country Assembly.
November 2018: Ballot draws record number of voters only problems remain
A woman and her children vote at a polling station during the 2018 midterm elections in Lorton, Virginia. (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Co-ordinate to early estimates, 116 meg voters—nearly half the eligible voting population (49.7 percentage)—cast ballots in the 2018 elections. Non merely did voter turnout set up a 100-year record for midterm races, but the election saw record numbers of women and candidates of color running at all levels. In addition, voters approved a number of important state election measures aimed at expanding the electorate and making it easier to vote, including a law in Florida that lifts the permanent ban on voting for people with a felony criminal tape. The numbers for 2018 were specially impressive given that many states go along to take aggressive steps to make it harder for people to vote. According to the nonpartisan coalition Ballot Protection, 23 states created new obstacles to voting in the decade preceding the 2018 election.
2019: Voting rights groups prepare for the 2020 Census and redistricting
Protestors stage a rally against gerrymandering during the U.S. Supreme Court hearings in March 2019 on landmark redistricting cases out of Due north Carolina and Maryland. (Photo: Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
In the same way that partisan interests and those in ability have used voting rights laws and policies to suppress the vote, they also have attempted to utilise the U.Southward. Census and the subsequent congressional redistricting process to accelerate their political goals. The Trump administration, for instance, fought unsuccessfully for two years to add together a question to the 2020 census asking if someone is a citizen of the United States. Voting rights and civil rights groups said this was a transparent attempt to instill fear in immigrant communities, with the result of undercounting the immigrant population and reducing its political power and voice. Other concerns about the 2020 census include chronic underfunding for the piece of work of accurately counting everyone in the nation. To the extent that the demography cuts corners, there is a well-founded belief that it will consequence in an undercount of already underrepresented populations, including low-income populations and people of color.
For further background and how we tin can protect the right to vote, read our report, Voting Rights Under Fire
Source: https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/voting-rights-timeline/
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