Who Can Vote?

Voting Good.

I respect the Founding Fathers, and I love the leap they took for humanity when they created America.  But when they wrote things like "All Men Are Created Equal," they weren't talking about me.

They were mostly talking about property-owning white dudes.  They were talking about themselves.


America has a fortunate history of saying the right thing - even when the people saying it don't mean it quite yet.

But saying the right thing, in legal documents, is really important because eventually people will assume you actually meant what you say and hold you to it.  And so I give to you...


A Brief History of American Enfranchisement:  

If the foundation of our political culture and our governmental system is democracy, then the history of our enfranchisement - the history of how we have included more people into our voting populace - is the history of how our country has grown, progressed, and succeeded at creating a workable democratic republic (representative democracy).  I think the progress is all the more impressive when it happens because we are a large and very diverse country.  This is not to say we haven't had periods of profound discord and prejudice.  We have.  And I'm including the times we have purposefully disenfranchised people, because it's important to know and examine the times and places when/where we have fallen short of our ideals.

Key: italics = disenfranchisement, bold = enfranchisement

1776 - In the Beginning (not all that long ago by historical and evolutionary standards), there were the white dudes with property (during the pre-Constitution period).


1787 - When the Constitution was ratified, there was state rule on voting requirements.  The working theory of the framers was that only those who have a "stake in society" should be able to vote (read: property-owning white dudes).  Some colonies banned Catholics and/or Jews, many had property requirements, and the universe we are talking about here is still only white men.
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In fact, when George Washington was elected in 1789, only 6% of the population could vote.



1848 - A Convention in Seneca Falls, NY connects abolitionists and women's suffrage activists, and adopts a Declaration of Sentiments that includes the sentiment that women should have the right to vote.  Meanwhile, also in 1848, Mexicans living in territories conquered by the US in the Mexican-American War are granted citizenship, but "English-language requirements and violent intimidation" suppress their registration and votes.


1855 - Connecticut adopts the first voting literacy test to suppress Irish-Catholic immigrant registration.


1856 - NC is the last state to drop its property rule, expanding the vote to all white men.
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We're up to approximately 5 million eligible voters at this point, out of a country of 23 million, so roughly 22% of the population could vote. 



1870 - The 15th Amendment is ratified, prohibiting federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."  This still means men, women trying to vote after ratification are turned away.  
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In theory, we are now up to approximately 9 million eligible voters out of a country of 39 million, so we're at roughly 23%* of the population that could vote.  

*This small percentage jump is because of the large number of young people in the population in the post-war period and the number of voting-aged men who died in the war  And a huge caveat: the 15th Amendment didn't magically erase all barriers to registration for the huge number of former slaves who were technically enfranchised.

1872 - Susan B. Anthony is arrested for voting for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. Sojourner Truth demands a ballot in MI, but is turned away.


1876 - The Supreme Court decides in US v. Cruikshank that Native Americans are not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment, and therefore cannot vote.


1882 - The Chinese Exclusion Act said that people of Chinese heritage could not become citizens, and therefore could not vote.


1887 - The Dawes Act provided a path to citizenship for Native Americans - and therefore the right to vote, but requires renunciation of tribal affiliation.


1889-1890 - Southern states adopt poll taxes and literacy tests, measures designed to circumvent the 15th Amendment and suppress African-American registration.


1890 - Wyoming is admitted to the Union, its constitution grants women suffrage, making it the first state to allow women to vote.  

Women gain suffrage in Colorado in 1893, Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Nevada and Montana in 1914, New York in 1917, Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918.


1896 - Louisiana passes "grandfather clauses" to keep former slaves and their descendants from voting.  African American registration drops from 44.8% to 4% in 1900.  MS, AL, SC, and VA follow LA's lead.  (Between grandfather clauses and poll taxes and literacy tests, by 1940, only 3% of eligible African Americans are registered to vote.)


1918 - President Wilson states his support for women's suffrage.

1920 - The 19th Amendment is ratified (72 years after Seneca Falls), and women are granted the right to vote.  This is the single largest act of enfranchisement in America's history.  
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We're at approximately 61 million eligible voters, out of a country of 106 million people, so roughly 58% of the population could vote.



1922 - The Supreme Court rules in Takao Ozawa v. US, that people of Japanese descent are not able to become citizens and therefore cannot vote.    


1924 - The Indian Citizenship Act announces that all Native Americans have citizenship, without requiring them to renounce Tribal affiliations.


1952 - The McCarran-Walter Act announces that all people of Asian ancestry can become citizens, and therefor have the right to vote.


1961 - The 23rd Amendment is ratified, giving citizens of Washington, D.C. the right to vote for president.


1964 - The 24th Amendment is ratified, outlawing poll taxes.

1965 - Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders march from Selma to Montgomery, AL after registration drives in Alabama (where the voting rolls were 99% white even though African-Americans outnumbered white people in the state) led to thousands of arrests and no new registered voters.  The march is stopped by violent attacks by both citizens and the local police.  The march continued and was successful with federal protection two weeks later.

5 months after the march, on August 6, 1965, LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, which bans literacy tests and provides federal "examiners" to help the registration process.  The Voting Rights Act is "generally considered the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever adopted by the United States Congress."  By the end of 1965, 250,000 new African-American voters are registered, 1/3 by the federal examiners.

                              



1971 - The 26th Amendment is ratified, lowering the voting age in all elections to 18.  
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So we're now at approximately 133 million eligible voters out of a population of 203 million, so roughly 66% of the population could vote.



1974 - The Supreme Court holds, in Richardson v. Ramirez, that felony disenfranchisement (barring a person who would otherwise be eligible to vote due to the conviction of a felony) does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and is therefore permissible.


1975 - The Voting Rights Act is amended to require that some voting materials must be printed in languages other than just English.


1993 - The National Voter Registration Act makes registering to vote easier by allowing registration at motor vehicle departments, public assistance agencies, and agencies for people with disabilities.  (This is sometimes referred to as Motor Voter.)


2002 - HAVA (The Help America Vote Act), passed in the aftermath of the 2000 election, sought to bring consistency from state to state in election procedures, and therefor requires that states follow federal mandates for a number of electoral processes and forms, including: provisional ballots, disability access, centralized, computerized voting lists, and electronic voting.


2006 - In League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, the Supreme Court gives states broad authority to determine whether their own redistricting plans were sufficient to protect the one-person-one-vote standard and slightly less latitude in determining whether districts passed the Voting Rights Act's standards for racial discrimination in redistricting.
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As of 2010, we are at approximately 209 million eligible voters* out of a country of 281 million, so roughly 74% of the population can vote.

*Roughly 5 million voters are disenfranchised by felony convictions, so this number goes down by a significant amount to 204 million voters and about 73% of the population, and you could count eligibility either way.

But history isn't over, so...

Today - Since the 2010 election, 22 states have enacted new restrictive voting measures, many of which will have a disproportionate impact on poor, elderly, and minority voters.