Introduction
The right to vote in America is a fundamental democratic liberty – it is one of those rights that we fight wars to defend. Yet, when the nation was founded, voting was almost exclusively reserved for propertied white men. Since then, voting rights have slowly grown more inclusive, expanding to an ever broader cross-section of the American public, but this progress has almost always been hard won.
Voting rights are tied to citizenship – you have to be a citizen in order to be eligible to vote. Throughout our history, this linkage has also meant that voting rights were closely tied to the paths to citizenship available to — or made unavailable to — different immigrant populations, native peoples, and the formerly enslaved and their descendants.
The Constitution does not stipulate who can vote. Instead, it is left to the states to decide, and they have often tried—with varying degrees of success—to limit voting. States initially allowed only a select few to cast a ballot, enacting property, tax, religion, gender, and race requirements. When George Washington was elected president, most white men could not vote as they did not own property. Only six percent of the total population was eligible to vote in that first election.
With time, pressures mounted to remove restrictions, beginning with the landowning requirement. In 1856, North Carolina became the last state to drop property demands for white men. And while the Constitution decreed that no officeholder should be subjected to a religion test, several states continued to require one for voting until 1828, when Maryland allowed Jews to enter the ballot booth. By the 1860s, all white males, regardless of their religion and property status, largely enjoyed universal suffrage in the US.
Other segments of the population did not fare as well. Women, African Americans, Native Americans, and many immigrants were barred from casting ballots for much of the country’s existence. African Americans gained citizenship with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, gave African American men the right to vote. Still, the Southern states suppressed the black vote through intimidation (lynchings, shootings, and other acts of violence) and various other measures—such as poll taxes and literacy tests. Such efforts proved so effective that by the early 20th century, nearly all African Americans had been disenfranchised in the South.
The history of voting rights in the US is largely the story of the struggles of women, the formerly enslaved, and native peoples to secure the right to vote – then to keep it. Repeated attacks on voting rights and efforts to manipulate the outcome of the vote continue up to this day, as illustrated in the timeline included here and discussed in more detail in the problem brief on voting rights.
The timeline offers a brief glimpse into the steady but often challenged expansion of voting rights.
NOTE: Throughout our history, immigrants have also struggled to obtain and then exercise their right to vote, but their struggle is more closely tied to the back-and-forth over their right to enter the country and become citizens. We examine that history in our storyline on the indifference of US law to immigrants.
Yet today, the Republican Party finds itself entertaining some of the same unsettling nativist and authoritarian impulses that characterized Europe throughout the 20th century. These ideals are antithetical to what it means to be a Republican, and what it means to be American.
— from Defending Democracy Together
Voting Rights Timeline
The great promise of American democracy in the late 1700s meant that only about 6% of the population could vote. That quickly began to change.
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U.S. Constitution gives states power to regulate voting
Because there was no agreement on a national standard for voting rights, states were given the power to regulate their own voting laws. In most cases, voting remained in the hands of white male Christian landowners. When Americans elected their first national leader in 1789, only this demographic – making up just 6% of the population – was eligible to vote.
Beginning in the early 1830s, a widening circle of women, and a few men, began encouraging greater participation by women in areas of society that were the exclusive domain of men. In particular, women’s roles started to grow alongside the growth of the movement to abolish slavery. A woman’s right to vote became a primary focus.
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Women begin to seek the right to vote
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Coffin Mott organized the first convention on women’s rights in Seneca Falls, NY – what became known as the Seneca Falls Convention. The women presented and debated a “Declaration of Sentiments” that ended up including, with encouragement from Frederick Douglass, the sole African American to attend the convention, the women’s right to vote.
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Women get the vote
On August 26, within 14 months of its passage by Congress, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by 36 states, giving women the right to vote nationwide. Estimates suggest that on Election Day that November, about eight to nine million women around the country, or about 36% of eligible women voters, voted for the first time.
The path to voting began with the emancipation of African slaves, and then the granting of citizenship and the right to vote in the 14th and 15th Amendments. The struggle to retain that right began in earnest after Reconstruction, when southern Democrats found ways to keep Black citizens from casting their ballots. Not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did the Black community, particularly in the South, begin to participate more fully and with greater impunity in the promise of American democracy.
So sweeping were these victories for civil rights that they largely ended Jim Crow in the south. Southern Democrats who had opposed the legislation switched their allegiance to the Republican Party, a seismic shift in American politics that would alter the Republican landscape and eventually create a platform for extreme views on race and the exercise of democracy.
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African American men given the vote
The 15th Amendment passed, stating that voting rights cannot be denied to any citizen at federal or state levels based on race. The federal presence in the South during this period of Reconstruction helped to jumpstart African American voter participation and led to the election of approximately 2000 Black candidates to public office; 16 Black men served in the US Congress during this period.
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90 years of Black voter suppression begins
With the Compromise of 1877, infamously known as “The Great Betrayal”, federal troops were withdrawn from the South and the former Confederate states, led by southern Democrats, soon began to use intimidation and a range of institutional mechanisms, including poll taxes and literacy tests, to disenfranchise Black voters.
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Supreme Court ruling spurs Jim Crow
In a ruling on five civil rights cases that it had combined due to their similarity, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional. The 8-1 decision struck down the Act’s provision against racial discrimination in public places like trains, restaurants, and hotels. In the ruling, the Court denied that Congress had the power to legislate against expressions of racial discrimination by private individuals and businesses. The ruling opened the door to the Southern states to enact more Jim Crow laws.
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Jim Crow laws more broadly adopted
By the 1890s, Jim Crow laws and the segregated culture of “separate but equal” were becoming enshrined in Southern culture. In 1898, Louisiana adopted a “Grandfather Clause” as part of its state constitution. This clause exempted poor white voters from the tests and taxes used to prevent former slaves and their adult children from voting. By 1902, all 11 former Confederate states had passed laws intended to limit Black voters’ electoral participation. Violence and threats of violence were also used to deter Southern Blacks from voting. The efforts succeeded, as voter turnout began a steep decline. In Louisiana, the percentage of registered Black voters dropped from 44.8% in 1896 to 4.0 % four years later.
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“Grandfather Clauses” eliminated
The US Supreme Court struck down grandfather clauses in Guinn v United States, but indicated that suppressive laws like literacy tests were OK, provided that they were not attached to a grandfather clause. The ruling had little impact on suppressive legislation.
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Poll taxes eliminated
The 24th Amendment was ratified, eliminating the poll tax for all federal elections.
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Supreme Court decisions uphold principle of “one person, one vote”
In separate rulings, the Supreme Court determined that districts for electing members of both the US House of Representatives (Wesberry v Sanders) and state legislatures (Reynolds v Sims) had to be approximately equal in population.
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Unequal application of voter registration requirements prohibited
Passage of the Civil Rights Act included a prohibition on the unequal application of voter registration requirements, a common practice in the Jim Crow states of the South. The Act’s passage also proved to be a turning point in American politics as many southern Democrats who opposed the legislation switched allegiance to the Republican Party.
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State-level voter discrimination outlawed
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which among other things, banned the use of literacy tests and gave the federal government oversight of election laws in states that had previously participated in egregious discriminatory practices.
Like African Americans, Native Americans faced prohibitive and discriminatory legislation regarding their citizenship status and right to vote that was variously upheld and overturned as the country slowly moved towards more inclusive policies.
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Path to citizenship for Native Americans
Passage of the Dawes Act offered native people a path to citizenship if they were willing to give up their tribal association. Approximately two-thirds of Native Americans became citizens in this manner over the next 37 years.
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Citizenship for all Native Americans
The Indian Citizenship Act granted all Native Americans citizenship. Many states nonetheless made laws and policies which prohibited Native Americans from voting.
We should clarify that at this point the right to vote extended to all US citizens in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, but the four million US citizens living on five US territories – Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands – were and still are barred from voting for president in the general election. And the territories and the District still lack full representation in Congress.
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Voting age lowered to 18 years old
Ratification of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution lowered the voting age to 18. The amendment was largely a result of Vietnam War protests demanding a lowering of the voting age on the premise that people who are old enough to fight are old enough to vote.
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Translation of voting materials required
In renewing the federal Voting Rights Act for a second time time, Congress added a requirement for the translation of voting materials in areas with large numbers of citizens with limited English language skills. The goal was to make it easier for citizens who were non-native English speakers to vote.
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Consent Decree Gives Federal Court Oversight of Ballot Security Measures
A 1981 lawsuit brought by the Democratic National Committee against the Republican National Committee alleged that the RNC and the Republican State Committee of New Jersey had engaged in voter intimidation tactics during that year’s gubernatorial election. Among other tactics, Democrats alleged that the RNC had employed off-duty police to patrol mostly minority-populated voting precincts, that these off-duty police wore armbands that read “National Ballot Security Task Force”, and that some of these off-duty police wore guns that were visibly displayed.
The suit was settled in 1982 when a federal judge approved a consent decree between the RNC and the DNC in which the RNC agreed to refrain from undertaking the kinds of ballot security activities alleged in the lawsuit. The consent decree also required a federal court to approve any activity by the RNC related to proposed ballot security activities. The decree was updated twice by the courts, which also rejected several requests by the RNC over the next 30 years to terminate the decree.
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Voting made easier for people with disabilities
Congress passed the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act which requires polling places to be accessible to people with disabilities.
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Voting made easier for military personnel and US citizens living abroad
Passage of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act made it easier for members of the US Uniformed Services and merchant marine, their family members, and US citizens living overseas to register to vote and to obtain absentee ballots.
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Voter registration made easier
The National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter Act, requires states to permit mail-in registration, and it makes registration services available at the DMVs, unemployment offices, and other state agencies.
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Provisional ballots mandated for federal elections
The Help America Vote Act, reflecting the recommendations of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform established in the wake of anomalies in the 2000 presidential election, requires states to provide a provisional ballot to any voter who claims eligibility but whose name can’t be found on the voter registration rolls.
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A last hurrah for the Voting Rights Act
On signing the second 25 year extension to the Voting Rights Act, President George W. Bush said to applause, “My administration will vigorously enforce the provisions of this law, and we will defend it in court.”
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Florida purges eligible voters
Under Republican Governor Jeb Bush, the state led an effort to enforce a law that barred ex-felons from voting. As a result, Florida purged 58,000 names from voter rolls in the 2000 presidential election. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the governor’s brother, won that controversial election when the Supreme Court declared him the winner in Florida. The margin of victory in Florida was 537 votes. The following year, an investigation found that at least 1,100 eligible voters had been wrongly removed from the rolls. Eventually, a court-ordered analysis determined that more than 12,000 eligible voters may have been wrongly purged and barred from voting.
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Report supports new photo ID requirements
The Carter-Baker Commission Report on Election Reform made several controversial recommendations. Most significantly, it advocated for the requirement that a photo ID be presented when voting as a means to combat voter fraud. The Brennan Center for Justice and other voter advocacy groups opposed this and other recommendations, citing a lack of data that voter fraud occurred at any significant level and pointing out that many people lacked the need for and the convenience of obtaining a photo ID. The number of states with strict voter ID laws began to rise soon after the report was released.
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Supreme Court eliminates federal oversight of states’ election laws
The Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder essentially gutted the VRA and eliminated federal oversight of state and local jurisdictions with a prior history of discriminatory behavior. Since this ruling, The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights has reported that “courts have found intentional discrimination in at least 10 voting rights decisions.”
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Decades-old ban on Republican election practices lifted
A US District Court order that banned the Republican National Committee from engaging in improper and discriminatory practices at the polls was allowed to expire at the end of 2017. In a 1981 lawsuit, the Democratic National Committee successfully argued that the Republic National Committee had improperly removed people in communities of color from the voter rolls and had hired off-duty police officers to patrol minority-dominated precincts in a manner that the Court agreed was designed to intimidate minority voters. Originally instituted in 1982, the decree was modified in 1987 and 1990 after courts found instances where the RNC had violated the ban. The court found another violation in 2004.
The COVID-19 pandemic threw primary elections and the general election into turmoil in 2020 as states tried to balance the risk of spreading the virus at polling centers with the desire to make sure voters were able to have their say in the democratic process. As many states turned to an expansion of absentee balloting, enabling more people to vote by mail, President Trump publicly admitted to the fear that if mail-in voting increased, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
In the months leading up to and following the November general election, Trump and other Republican leaders repeated unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud and rigged elections. Dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump team after the election were denied by the courts in multiple states. Yet the false claims of an illegitimate election victory by Joe Biden persist well into Biden’s presidency. Even a failed insurrection on January 6, 2021 – an effort to stop Congress from certifying the election results – was not enough to put an end to the lie. In fact, Kevin McCarthy, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, still voted against certification hours after the perpetrators were removed and disbursed. Weeks later, he refused to support calls for a second impeachment of the president and an independent investigation of the violent mob. And in April, he tried to walk back his own statements about Trump’s responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.
Support by Republican leaders for the attack and perpetuation of the lie of a stolen election is a reflection of both how far the Party has come from its conservative roots and an existential threat to the American experiment in democracy. Opposition to what some have called a “slow coup” has so far been scattered and unproductive as the calendar turns to 2022 and the midterm elections.
In this section, our timeline entries consist of recent progress updates detailing the current struggles to protect not just voting rights for all, but the integrity of our electoral process.
Georgia’s New Voting Law: Mostly A Step Backward
Competing partisan-driven narratives are causing broad confusion over a new voting law in Georgia that poses legitimate threats to the integrity of the electoral process.
Kentucky Expands Voting Rights, Bucks Political Polarization
Kentucky has defied a divisive political narrative on election reform and voting rights by bringing Republicans and Democrats together to make voting a little easier for state voters.
Voting Rights Battle: Partisan Conflict or Attack on Democracy?
The battle being waged over voting rights in state legislatures and the US Congress has been too easily mischaracterized as a partisan fight. Texas Democrats walked out to avoid a floor vote and bring attention to a state-by-state attack on our democracy.
Election Security, Voter Suppression & Voter ID: Behind the Debate
The voter ID debate pits election security concerns against worries about suppressing voter access. It is a false choice and a distraction from more dangerous threats to election integrity.
Mainers Again Flex Their Independence to Protect Their Vote
A ballot initiative to ban foreign money from influencing state elections and support an amendment to the US Constitution to regulate campaign spending reflects Maine’s continuing role as a laboratory for voting reforms aimed at strengthening the power and voice of local citizens.
Can the Army of Anti-Democracy Republicans Be Stopped?
A record number of opponents of fair elections are being recruited to run for office, administer elections, and mount election challenges. At this point, the quest to prevent Republican victory at the polls has ceased being a partisan mission and become instead a constitutional imperative.
No Central Command in Battle Against Anti-Democracy Candidates
Hundreds of election deniers are running for office. With the integrity of our elections once again at stake in November, efforts to thwart the forces that would destroy what's left of our democratic foundation are hampered by the lack of a clear, coordinated battle plan.
Threat to Democracy Coming Into Focus
More Americans are recognizing that their choice at the ballot box this fall is between continuing as a country governed by a democratically chosen majority and giving away that right to a party dominated by people who no longer respect election results or our democratic institutions.
Citizen Lobbyists Push for Constitutional Amendment to Limit Campaign Financing
Brought together by American Promise, about 50 citizens met with more than 50 Democratic and Republican members of Congress to lay the groundwork for passage of a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress and the states to limit corporate campaign contributions.
Abortion Access is Frontline in Church-State Struggle
Intentionally or not, the opposition to abortion rights has generated an attack on the First Amendment principle of separation of church and state. And their victory in Dobbs has further emboldened anti-democracy forces that would make this a Christian nation.
Ballot Initiatives Attacked in Attempt to Restrict Direct Democracy
Arizona and Arkansas join the ranks of states attempting to limit citizen use of the ballot initiative – another line of attack on citizen-led democracy in this November's election.
What Did the People Decide? Ballot Initiatives in the 2022 Midterms
In the 2022 midterms, Americans in states across the country made their voices heard on issues through citizen-led ballot measures — and the results were often in opposition to the desires of state legislatures.
Building a More Perfect Union in 2023
2022 ended with sighs of relief and celebrations that the red wave didn’t happen, that voters rejected efforts to codify strict anti-abortion laws, that the budget deficit was cut in half, and that there was some bipartisan support for climate change action and improved access to healthcare. All good, but there is still work to be done.
Bipartisan Hope Isn’t Helping Divided Congress Avoid Debt Crisis
Our Congress has two faces: We saw the authoritarian one during the rancorous vote for House Speaker, while the other is seen in an op-ed that lauds the bipartisan collaboration that produced over 200 recommendations for making Congress work more efficiently. As we brace for another game of chicken over the debt ceiling, it’s clear which face is doing the talking.
Protecting Voting Rights and Our Elections
Despite significant losses for election deniers in last November’s midterm elections, many anti-democracy candidates won key administrative and legislative seats up and down the ballot, and attacks on voting rights and the integrity of our elections continue.
Election-Related Decisions Indicate Courts Still Favor Democracy
Despite efforts to alter the legal landscape, recent judicial decisions indicate our courts remain a bulwark against incursions by those who would subvert our democratic institutions.
Sources
The URLs included with the sources below were good links when we published. However, as third party websites are updated over time, some links may be broken. We do not update these broken links. If you are interested in the source, it may be possible to find it by copying and pasting the URL into a search on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. From the search results, be sure to choose a date from around the time our article was published.
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Credits
Related Problem: Voting Rights
Contributors: George Linzer, Michael Deal, Flannery Wiest
Published: November 3, 2019
Last Updated: September 21, 2021
Feature image: George Linzer
