Extending suffrage has been a multi-generational endeavor throughout the history of the United States.
1) Consider the following timeline which shows the changes to the American electorate over time.
1865 – The 13th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.
1868 – The 14th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution. It granted citizenship to all people “born or naturalized in the United States,” and gave all citizens equal protection under the law.
1870 – The 15th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, determining that a citizen’s right to vote could not be denied or diminished because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
1877 – The end of Reconstruction. From 1877 through the mid-20th century, new state laws and amendments to state constitutions ushered in a system of racial segregation and the near-complete disenfranchisement of Black voters in the South.
1882 – The Chinese Exclusion Act denied people of Chinese ancestry from the right to citizenship and suffrage.
1884 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Elk v. Wilkins that Indigenous peoples did not have equal protection under the law and, therefore, did not have the right to vote.
1890 – Individual states started extending suffrage to include women in state and local, not federal, elections.
1920 – The 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, extending suffrage to include all women in all elections. However, de facto and de jure racial discrimination limited the voting rights of women of color.
1922 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ozawa v. United States that people of Japanese ancestry were ineligible for citizenship.
1923 – The U.S. Supreme Court similarly ruled in Thind v. United States that Indians were ineligible for citizenship.
1924 – The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 extended citizenship to all Indigenous peoples, although it took over 40 years for all states to comply and extend suffrage.
1952 – The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 extended the right to citizenship and suffrage to all people of Asian ancestry.
1961 – The 23rd Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, extending suffrage to include citizens of Washington, DC.
1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Title 1 of the Act specifically guaranteed equal voting rights and eliminated many restrictive voting requirements and procedures.
1964 – The 24th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing poll taxes in federal elections. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Harper vs. Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes were also unconstitutional in state and local elections.
1965 – The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, becoming the most significant effort to protect voting rights in the history of the U.S.
1971 – The 26th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, extending suffrage to include 18 to 20-year-olds.
1993 – The National Voter Registration Act increased access to voter registration by requiring the Department of Motor Vehicles, public assistance facilities, and disabilities agencies to make voter registration readily available.
2013 – The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder eliminated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, dismantling federal pre-clearance requirements and allowing states that had previously needed to seek approval from the federal government to change voting laws and procedures, to do so by themselves.
2023 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama’s redistricting process was racially discriminatory, upholding Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
2) Answer the following questions:
Question to Answer: Which events along this timeline do you consider to be the most significant in altering the American electorate (both positive and negative)? Discuss why you think each is significant? make sure to use the word terminate at least 3 times in your responses
3) Head over to Pew ResearchLinks to an external site.. Read through the page and consider voter turnout, 2018-2022, and how it manifests across demographics.
4) Answer the following questions:
Question to Answer: Using data from this source, report back which groups are likely to turnout and those which are not. make sure to use the word terminate at least 3 times in your responses
Question to Answer: Amongst the groups that turnout vs those that don’t, what do you think is going on here in terms of their overall levels of turnout by group, discuss your answer?
