The Right to Vote

Did you know that the U. S. Constitution did NOT originally define who had the right to vote? It deferred that decision to each state. As you can imagine, this created much confusion. Many states only allowed Caucasian male property owners the franchise. Some allowed Caucasian males with taxable income to vote. New Jersey even allowed women to vote if they met the property requirement. In some places freed slaves and non-white Americans were allowed to vote, again if they met the property requirement. Many states and local jurisdictions started requiring poll taxes be paid to vote and literacy tests passed. By the time of the Civil War, most white males were allowed to vote whether they owned property or not. By not clearly defining the right to vote, the framers of the Constitution created chaos. Many citizens were kept from voting because they were deemed to be "undesirable". Now, if any of this is beginning to sound like what is again happening in our country, you might want to start paying attention!

Carol Anderson, Professor Of African American Studies at Emory University, and best selling author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth Of Our Nation’s Divide, has a new book on voting rights entitled, One Person, No Vote. Available on September 11, 2018, this is the story of how absolutely fragile the voting franchise is in our country. Anderson details how these rights have been challenged before leading to several amendments to the U. S. Constitution that guarantee citizens' right to vote. Unfortunately, there are always those who want to make voting harder, especially for persons of color and poor people.  Professor Anderson's newest book is very well written with extensive notes. It is a must read for anyone interested in learning about the history of voting in the United States of America. 

In 1965, our Congress also passed the Voting Rights Act. See this link for brief timeline of voting rights up to 2016:  https://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act As you can see, citizens are again having to face efforts by some in power to keep others from be able to vote. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Shelby vs. Holder, gutted a critical protection of the voting rights act, section 4. This allowed states to begin enacting voter new restriction laws. Since then there have been numerous court fights and decisions to restore voters' rights. A simple review of the ACLU timeline linked above is illuminating. There is no ABSOLUTE right to vote. Voting can be restricted. 

No one should take their right to vote for granted. To learn if you can vote this year by clicking this link:  iwillvote.com Then, please check this link to learn all you can about voting and access to resources to help you exercise your rights. http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting/Learn.shtml