Voting rights in the United States facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Voting rights in the United States
Demographics
Poll taxes	Abolished 1964
Literacy tests abolished	Abolished 1965 for federal elections
Minimum voting age	18 in most jurisdictions
Preregistration age	16 in 41 states and D.C.; 17 in 4 states; 17.5 or older in 4 states
Felon voting status	Individual petitions required in 2 states; circumstantial in 5 states; restrictions under probation in 20 states; restrictions under parole in 2 states; unrestricted after prison release in 18 states and 2 territories; unrestricted in Maine, Vermont, Puerto Rico and D.C.
Voter registration
Voter registration required	All states except in North Dakota
Online voter registration	Implemented fully in 40 states, D.C. and Guam; in-process in Oklahoma and Maine; implemented in Texas for those renewing licenses
Automatic voter registration	Implemented in 15 states and D.C.; in-process in 6 states
Same-day registration	same-day ad early-voting registration in 8 states and D.C.; same-day only in 9 states; early-voting only in 2 states; same-day and early-voting registration in-process in 2 states
Partisan affiliation	Partisan registration in 31 states and D.C.; nonpartisan registration in 18 states
Voting process
Polling place identification requirements	photo ID required in 8 states; photo ID requested in 9 states; non-photo ID required in 3 states; non-photo ID requested in 13 states
Postal ballot status	no-excuse in 34 states (all-postal in 7 states)
Permanent list postal ballot status	10 states
Election method	First-past-the-post plurality in 44 states; two-round systems in 5 states; ranked-choice voting in Maine
Voter powers
Redistricting system	12 states with nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions for congressional redistricting; 16 states with commissions for legislative redistricting; Iowa uses nonpartisan staff
Prison-based redistricting	10 states prohibit prison redistricting
Ballot question rights	Legislative referral in 49 states and D.C. (26 states with some form of ballot initiative by petition)

U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S. population. Notice the big jump in 1828 when more white men could vote. See the drop from 1890 to 1910 when many African Americans and poor white people lost their right to vote. Another big jump happened in 1920 when women gained the right to vote.

Voting rights in the United States are about who gets to vote and who doesn't. This has been a very important topic throughout American history.

The rules for voting in the United States come from the U.S. Constitution and from federal and state laws. The Constitution says that voting rights cannot be taken away because of a person's race, color, past slavery, gender, or age (if they are 18 or older). When the Constitution was first written, it didn't set these rules. Each state had a lot of freedom to decide who could vote.

A big change happened in 1964 with the Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sims. This case said that voting districts for state legislatures must have about the same number of people. This is known as the "one man, one vote" idea. Other important cases like Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) also helped set up this system. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Twenty-fourth Amendment, voting rights have been connected to how elections are set up.

Sometimes, in local elections, the way votes are counted can make it harder for minority groups to elect their chosen leaders. To fix this, some places now use different election systems.

People living in District of Columbia and five major territories of the United States have one non-voting member in the United States House of Representatives. They do not have any members in the United States Senate. People in U.S. territories cannot vote for the president of the United States. However, people in Washington, D.C. can vote for president because of the Twenty-third Amendment.

Why Voting Matters

The right to vote is the main idea of any democracy. Earl Warren, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote in 1964 that "The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society." He meant that voting is super important for a free society. He also said that any limits on this right hurt the idea of representative government.

Justice Hugo Black agreed, saying in 1964 that "No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws." He believed that other rights are not truly safe if the right to vote is weakened.

How Voting Rights Changed Over Time

In the early days of the Thirteen Colonies, only certain people could vote. Often, you had to own land or pass a religious test. For example, in 1660, Plymouth Colony only allowed people with a certain amount of property to vote. Later, they added a rule that you had to be "orthodox in the fundamentals of religion."

By the 1700s, voting was mostly for European men who owned property. The amount of property needed was different in each colony. For example, in Georgia, you needed 50 acres of land to vote.

When the U.S. Constitution started in 1789, it didn't say who could vote. Each state decided. At first, some states allowed only white men who owned property to vote. Other states allowed men of any race to vote if they owned property. Women were usually not allowed to vote. However, in New Jersey, women could vote until 1807 if they met the property rule. Free Black men could also vote in some places if they owned property.

Around 1790, states started changing their rules. They focused more on gender and race instead of property. Most states took away voting rights from women and non-white men. By 1856, all white men could vote in most states, even if they didn't own property. But some states still required paying a tax to vote.

After the American Civil War, four new amendments were added to the Constitution to give more people the right to vote:

• The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) said you couldn't be stopped from voting because of your "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (meaning if you were a slave before).
• The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote.
• The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) stopped states from making people pay a poll tax to vote in federal elections.
• The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) gave 18-year-olds and older the right to vote.

After the Civil War, some Southern states created "Jim Crow laws". These laws used things like literacy tests (reading tests) and poll taxes to stop African Americans and poor white people from voting. Over time, the federal government got more involved in elections to stop these unfair practices.

The U.S. Constitution doesn't exactly say everyone has a "right to vote." Instead, it says that states cannot stop people from voting based on certain reasons like race or gender. States can still have other rules, like requiring people to register to vote a certain number of days before an election.

Important Dates in Voting Rights

Here are some key moments when voting rights changed in the U.S.:

• 1789: States set voting rules. Only about 6% of the population (white men who owned property or paid taxes) could vote.
• 1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 said only "free white persons" could become citizens and vote.
• 1792–1838: Free Black men lost the right to vote in some Northern states, like Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
• 1792–1856: States removed property requirements for white men. By 1856, most white men could vote, even if they didn't own land.
• 1868: The Fourteenth Amendment made all people born or naturalized in the U.S. citizens. This was a big step for future voting rights.
• 1869–1920: Some states started allowing women to vote. Wyoming was the first in 1869.
• 1870: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution stopped states from denying the right to vote based on race or color. This gave African American men the right to vote.
• Late 1800s: After the Reconstruction Era, many Southern states used Jim Crow laws like poll taxes and literacy tests to stop African Americans and poor white people from voting.
• 1887: The Dawes Act gave citizenship to Native Americans who left their tribes, making some men eligible to vote.
• 1913: The Seventeenth Amendment allowed people to directly elect their Senators. Before this, state legislatures chose them.
• 1920: The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in all U.S. states.
• 1924: All Native Americans became citizens and gained the right to vote, no matter their tribal ties. However, some western states still stopped them from voting until 1948.
• 1943: The Magnuson Act gave Chinese immigrants the right to become citizens and vote.
• 1948: Arizona and New Mexico were among the last states to give full voting rights to Native Americans.
• 1954-1964: The U.S. Supreme Court made important decisions, like Reynolds v. Sims, that created the "one man, one vote" system across the country. This meant voting districts had to be about equal in population.
• 1961: The Twenty-third Amendment gave people in Washington, D.C. the right to vote for president.
• 1964: The Twenty-fourth Amendment banned poll taxes in federal elections.
• 1965: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected the right to vote for racial and language minorities.
• 1966: The Supreme Court banned all poll taxes in state elections.
• 1971: The Twenty-sixth Amendment gave 18-year-olds the right to vote. This happened because many young people were fighting in the Vietnam War but couldn't vote.
• 1986: The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act gave U.S. military members and citizens living overseas the right to vote in federal elections.

Native American People

For a long time, Native Americans were seen as citizens of their own tribes, not of the United States. This meant they often couldn't vote. Treaties between the U.S. government and tribes treated tribes as separate nations.

In 1887, the Dawes Act tried to make Native Americans citizens if they gave up their tribal ways. But this still didn't guarantee their voting rights. Finally, in 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act made all Native Americans U.S. citizens. Even then, some western states still made it hard for them to vote with unfair rules or by hiding polling places. Since the late 1900s, the Voting Rights Act has helped protect their voting rights.

Alaska Natives

In the Alaskan Territory, Alaska Natives were not seen as U.S. citizens and couldn't vote. A law in 1915 said they could vote if they gave up their "tribal customs." People like William Paul fought for their voting rights. In 1925, a reading test was used to stop Alaska Natives from voting. After the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, they gained more rights. When Alaska became a state, its new constitution made the reading test easier. In 1970, Alaska banned state voter reading tests. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also helps Alaska Natives who don't speak English.

Religious Tests

In many early American colonies, people had to pass a religious test to vote or hold office. For example, in Delaware in 1776, you had to say you believed in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Only Protestants could be in the legislature in South Carolina in 1778.

The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, changed this. Article Six says that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." This meant the federal government couldn't make you pass a religious test. However, some states, like Maryland, still kept religious tests for state offices for a while.

African Americans and Poor White People

When the Constitution was first approved, many states had rules about owning property to vote. This meant more than half of white men couldn't vote. Some states, like North Carolina, allowed free Black men who owned property to vote.

After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) made all people born in the U.S. citizens. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) then said states couldn't stop people from voting because of their race. This gave African American men the right to vote, especially those who had been enslaved in the South.

After the war, some Southern states passed "Black Codes" to limit the freedom of African Americans. They also tried to stop them from voting. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan used violence to scare Black voters. Even so, many Black men registered and voted.

In the late 1800s, white leaders in the South wanted to stop African Americans and poor white people from voting. From 1890 to 1908, many Southern states created new rules to make it harder to register to vote. These included:

• Paying a poll tax.
• Passing a literacy test (reading and writing test). White officials often failed Black people even if they could read.
• "Grandfather clauses" that allowed illiterate white people to vote if their grandfathers could vote before 1866. Most Black people's grandfathers were enslaved and couldn't vote, so this didn't help them.

These rules stopped most Black people and many poor white people from voting for decades.

Fighting for Voting Rights

African Americans quickly started legal challenges against these unfair rules. Booker T. Washington secretly helped fund these efforts. In 1915, the Supreme Court struck down the "grandfather clause" in some states.

The NAACP led many legal fights against unfair voting rules. In 1944, the Supreme Court stopped the use of all-white primary elections in the South. States kept trying to find new ways to stop Black people from voting, but the NAACP kept fighting.

In 1957, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to protect voting rights. It created the United States Commission on Civil Rights to look into voter discrimination.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment was passed in 1964 to ban poll taxes in federal elections. The American Civil Rights Movement, with events like the Selma to Montgomery marches, pushed for more change. This led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This law allowed the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections to stop discrimination. After this, African American voter registration and voting rates in the South went up a lot.

In 1966, the Supreme Court finally said all state poll taxes were illegal. This helped poor people of all races vote.

Asian Americans

Asian Americans also faced challenges in voting. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act stopped Chinese immigrants from coming to the U.S. and becoming citizens. Without citizenship, they couldn't vote.

Things slowly got better. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in the mid-1900s. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 allowed Asian Americans to seek citizenship based on a quota system, not race. Then, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped protect voting rights for Asian Americans and other minority groups.

Women

The movement for women's suffrage (the right to vote) was a separate but equally important fight. Leaders like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul worked hard for this cause.

In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention was the first meeting for women's rights. Many people signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which called for women's right to vote. Different groups formed, like the National Women Suffrage Association, which focused on changing the Constitution.

Wyoming was the first state where women could vote in 1869. Utah was the second territory. Other states also allowed women to vote before a national amendment.

In the 1910s, Alice Paul organized big events like the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade. Finally, the Nineteenth Amendment was approved in 1920, giving women the right to vote across the entire U.S.

Military Members

Members of the U.S. Armed Forces have always had voting rights based on the same rules as other citizens. The main issues for military voting have been about voting when stationed far away and staying neutral in politics.

Voting from Far Away

Historically, many military members overseas couldn't vote because of state laws about absentee voting (voting when you're not there). States often made it easier for military members to vote if they thought it would help their political party win.

Federal laws like the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (1986) and the MOVE Act (2010) changed this. Now, military members can vote from anywhere they are stationed.

Staying Neutral in Politics

Military members must stay neutral in politics when they are on duty. They cannot support any political party or candidate while representing the military. They can express their personal opinions, donate money to campaigns, or sign petitions. But they cannot lead political events or wear their uniforms at political rallies. This helps keep the military out of politics.

Washington, D.C.

People living in Washington, D.C. do not have a voting representative or U.S. Senator in Congress. This is because D.C. is a federal district, not a state. The Constitution says only states get representatives.

In 1801, Congress took away D.C. citizens' voting rights. Over time, Congress also took away local control. In 1961, the Twenty-third Amendment gave D.C. citizens the right to vote for president. But they still don't have full voting members in Congress. There have been efforts to give D.C. a voting member in the House of Representatives, but it hasn't happened yet.

Young Adults

Another big change in voting rights was lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. This happened in the 1960s. Many young people argued that if they were old enough to fight in the Vietnam War, they should be old enough to vote for the leaders sending them to war.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment, approved in 1971, stopped states from setting the voting age higher than 18. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will be 18 by the general election.

People with Serious Convictions

Rules about voting rights for people who have committed serious crimes are different in each state. Most states do not allow people to vote while they are in prison for a serious crime. However, in Maine and Vermont, people in prison can vote. In Puerto Rico, people in prison can also vote.

Some states also stop people from voting even after they leave prison. For example, in Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, people with past serious crime convictions could lose their right to vote for life. However, in 2018, Florida voters approved a change to restore voting rights to many people who had completed their sentences.

The number of people in prison in the U.S. has grown a lot. This means more people are affected by these rules. As of 2010, about 5.9 million Americans couldn't vote because of a past serious crime conviction.

How Long You Must Live Somewhere

The Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that states cannot require you to live in a place for a whole year before you can vote. They said that states can require you to register 30 to 50 days before an election for practical reasons. But longer residency rules are unfair.

People with Disabilities

Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) help make voting easier for people with disabilities.

However, some studies show that many polling places are still hard for people with disabilities to access. For example, some places don't have ramps or elevators for people using wheelchairs. Also, most states don't have Braille ballots for blind voters, so they have to bring someone to help them vote.

Many election officials suggest that people with disabilities vote by mail. But some people with disabilities prefer to vote in person, just like everyone else. Studies show that people with disabilities are very interested in government and want to participate in elections.

People Experiencing Homelessness

People who are experiencing homelessness can face challenges when trying to vote. These challenges include proving where they live, getting mail, and showing identification. States cannot require a person to prove residency for more than 30 days before Election Day. Some states allow people to register and vote on the same day.

Since 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires voters to provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security Number when they register. This applies to all voters.

Voting in U.S. Territories

People who live in U.S. territories like American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, or the United States Virgin Islands cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections. They also cannot elect voting members to the U.S. Congress. This is because the U.S. Constitution says that only people in the 50 states or Washington, D.C. can vote in federal elections.

Like Washington, D.C., U.S. territories do not have U.S. Senators. They each have one non-voting member in the House of Representatives.

There have been lawsuits to challenge these voting limits. People argue that it's unfair that citizens in territories can't vote for president or have full representation in Congress.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. This means it's part of the United States but not a state or Washington, D.C. People living in Puerto Rico cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections or elect voting members to the U.S. Congress.

This means that any U.S. citizen living in Puerto Rico cannot vote in national elections. Some experts believe that this situation means the U.S. national election process is not fully democratic.

Non-Citizens Voting

In the past, more than 40 states or territories allowed non-citizens who lived there for a certain time to vote in some elections. This showed how much the U.S. welcomed immigrants. Today, some cities or towns still allow non-citizens to vote in local or school elections. However, federal law now stops non-citizens from voting in federal elections.

Images for kids

• 

  U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S. population. Notice the big jump in 1828 when more white men could vote. See the drop from 1890 to 1910 when many African Americans and poor white people lost their right to vote. Another big jump happened in 1920 when women gained the right to vote.

• 

  Some states (shown in blue) allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries/caucuses if their 18th birthday is before the general election.