The history of voting rights in the U.S. has never been a story of linear development, but rather, a back-and-forth between progress and regression. In the early days of the U.S., only white, Protestant, landowning men had the right to vote. Voting rights were considered a state issue, meaning each state determined who could and could not vote. States like New Jersey expanded voting rights beyond property-owning white men temporarily, while other states continued to uphold a federal standard barring Black Americans, women, and Native Americans from the polls.
In 1870 – nearly 100 years after the U.S. was established as a nation – the 15th Amendment was ratified. The amendment stated that citizens could not be denied the right to vote based on their race, color, or previous condition of servitude, which meant that Black men were now able to vote and hold political office. Black Americans finally had the right to political participation, and two Black men even became members of the U.S. Senate in 1870. The growing political power of Black Americans produced a backlash, and upon the end of Reconstruction, states – especially in the South – began to find new ways to disenfranchise people. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses denying people the right to vote if their ancestors had not voted prior to 1867 made it impossible for descendants of enslaved people to vote. These voter suppression and intimidation tactics reinforced white supremacy and prevented people of color from being able to fully exercise their rights of democratic citizenship.
Fifty years later, in 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed, giving white women the right to vote, but many non-white women were still disenfranchised. Even after the signing in 1962 of the 24th Amendment, which outlawed poll taxes, people of color in the South still faced huge obstacles to voting. These obstacles motivated the struggle for civil rights that accelerated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the Freedom Summer Project. The Council of Federated Organizations, a broad-based civil rights coalition, organized thousands of volunteers in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. One of the project’s activities was a voter registration campaign to mobilize disenfranchised Black voters in the state. The campaign was met with violent backlash from local officials and other Mississippians. Over a thousand volunteers were arrested, dozens of volunteers were beaten, Black homes, businesses, and churches were bombed and burned, and at least seven people were murdered. The Freedom Summer Project was a pivotal moment that raised nationwide awareness of voter disenfranchisement and the need for civil rights, which catalyzed passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, other protections have been passed to ensure all citizens can exercise their right to vote. These protections include the 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, which changed the voting age from 21 to 18 in response to the draft that was instated during the Vietnam War. The Voting Rights Act was expanded in 1975 to cover those who speak different languages, and two decades later, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allowing people to register to vote while applying for a driver’s license, through the mail, and at designated offices.
Yet despite these efforts, voter suppression persists. In Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively undermined the Voting Rights Act by ruling unconstitutional the provision requiring federal oversight of jurisdictions with histories of voter discrimination. Since that ruling, delivered in 2013, voter suppression efforts, including strict photo identification laws and limitations to mail-in voting, have only increased.
In 2023, some states passed laws that expanded access to voting, while other states passed laws restricting access to voting. In total, 23 states enacted 53 expansive voting laws, while 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws. In 2024, voters in 27 states will face restrictive voting laws that they have not yet experienced during a presidential election.
While the struggle for voting rights has been long and hard fought, the U.S. still has miles to go before all Americans are able to exercise their civil right to vote, free of suppression and intimidation. Organizers and advocates across the country are working together on the local, state, and national levels to ensure historically oppressed and disenfranchised groups know their rights, can register to vote, and can make it to the polls.