Search results
Voting rights have expanded and contracted—through landmark legislation, constitutional amendments, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions—throughout history, reflecting the evolution of the American democratic project and ultimately embracing the diversity of the electorate.
- Mindy Johnston
- Constitution Leaves States in Charge of Voting
- Black Men, Women Get Right to Vote
- Native Americans, Asian Americans Gain Rights
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Accessibility Becomes Requirement
- Supreme Court Walks Back Voting Rights Act
- Sources
August 2, 1776: Declaration of Independence Frames Voters' Rights In the Declaration of Independence, signed on this day, Thomas Jeffersonwrites, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." June 21, 1788: Voting Left to States The U.S. Constitution is adopted on this date, but in lieu of a fe...
February 3, 1870: Black Men Granted the Right to Vote The 15th Amendmentis ratified, granting Black men the right to vote and Congress the power to enforce the right. However, laws, including poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses, are enacted in mostly Southern states, suppressing Black voting rights until 1965. August 18, 1920: Women ...
June 2, 1924: Native Americans Granted the Right to Vote Congress enacts the Indian Citizenship Act, granting the right to vote to Native Americans born in the United States. Despite its passage, some states continue to bar Native Americans from voting. 1943 Chinese Exclusion Act Ends In the wake of World War II when the United States and China had...
August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, banning literacy tests and enforcing the 15th Amendment on a federal level. It also provides for federal examiners who can register voters in certain jurisdictions. Facing a flurry of legal challenges, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds its constitutionality in a ...
September 28, 1984: Voting Is Made Accessible The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Actof 1984 is signed into law by Reagan, requiring polling places in federal elections to be accessible for people with disabilities and the elder. It also states that if no accessible location is available, an alternative way to vote on Election ...
June 25, 2013: Voting Rights Act Walked Back In Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, rules that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures, known as preclearance, are outdated. Seen as a blow to civil righ...
Voting Rights: A Short History, Carnegie Corporation The Fight for the Right to Vote, Pence Law Library Guides The 19th Amendment, U.S. National Archives History of Federal Voting Rights Laws, U.S. Department of Justice The Twenty-Sixth Amendment, U.S. Constitution Center The Americans With Disabilities Act and Other Federal Laws Protecting the Rig...
- Lesley Kennedy
This is a timeline of voting rights in the United States, documenting when various groups in the country gained the right to vote or were disenfranchised.
1792–1838: Free black males lose the right to vote in several Northern states including in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey. 1792–1856: Abolition of property qualifications for white men, from 1792 (New Hampshire) to 1856 (North Carolina) during the periods of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy. However, tax-paying qualifications remained ...
Within just a few months, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, and on August 6, 1965, Johnson signed it into law. In the decades since the passage of the VRA, its protections have been...
May 27, 2021 · The right to vote has long been considered one of the cherished freedoms key to American democracy. But voting rights in general were very limited in the Founders’ time and have changed greatly since then. The Constitution took effect in early 1789 after the first federal elections.
People also ask
What is a timeline of voting rights in the United States?
How has the right to vote changed over time?
When did Americans get the right to vote?
When was the right to vote expanded?
When did voting rights become a law?
When did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 get extended?
After a long struggle beginning in the mid-19th century, women finally received the right to vote in all U.S. states in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which prohibited voter discrimination based on sex (see women’s suffrage).
