Talking Points
Voting and the Origins of American Civic Involvement
1. The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly state the right to vote; though it states
that the House of Representatives is to be "chosen …by the People of the several
States," in Article 1, Section 2. By omission, setting voter qualifications was left
to the states; this left major groups-women, men without property, and African
Americans-without the right to vote for decades to come.
2. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 forbade unequal treatment by state
governments and thus extended voting rights to all citizens, regardless of race. The
language in Section 2, however, limited voting rights to "male
citizens…twenty-one years of age."
3. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, specifically stated that the right to
vote "shall not be denied … on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude." The Nineteenth Amendment, not ratified until half a century later,
declared that citizens could not be denied the right to vote on the basis of their sex,
finally granting women the right to vote.
4. Though the Fifteenth Amendment’s purpose is clearly stated, African-Americans
were prevented from voting by various means until well into the second half of the
twentieth century. Poll taxes, literacy tests, whites-only primaries, intimidation, and
violence were practices used widely to keep blacks from voting. The Supreme Court cases Smith
v. Allwright, in 1944, and Terry v. Adams, in 1953, outlawed several such
exclusionary practices.
5. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, went a step further toward
eradicating exclusionary voting practices. It said that individuals could not be prevented
from voting if they were unable to pay poll taxes. Many jurisdictions used poll taxes as a
way to prevent the poor-and especially African-Americans-from voting.
6. Voting Rights Act of 1965. By 1965, black registered voters in the deep South
were still virtually nonexistent. The national broadcasting of the Selma, Alabama police
using violence against nonviolent civil rights protestors, affected many. The Voting
Rights Act was passed to give teeth to the civil rights legislation of the previous years.
It suspended the use of discriminatory tests that had been used in the southern states to
prevent blacks from registering, and prohibited them from using any "voting
qualifications or prerequisites to voting, or standard, practice or procedures with
respect to voting," without first clearing it with the attorney general or a federal
district court in Washington, D.C.
7. In the wake of the Vietnam War, many protested that they should not be compelled to
serve in the armed forces, and potentially be killed, without having a voice in the
electoral process. The Twenty-sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age to
that of the draft-eighteen.
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