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White Male Property Owners
Only people who own land can vote.
Declaration of Independence signed, right to vote during the Colonial and Revolutionary periods is restricted to property owners. Most are white male Protestants over the age of 21. -
Voting for all White Men
North Carolina is the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement to vote. -
Assimilation
Right to Vote Dawes Act passed. It grants citizenship to Native Americans who give up their tribal affiliations. -
Women can vote
Right to vote extended to women.
19th Amendment passed, giving women right to vote in both state and federal
elections. -
Voting Rights as Civil Rights
Voting rights as civil rights
Large-scale efforts in the South to register African Americans to vote are intensified.
However, state officials refuse to allow African Americans to register by using voting
taxes, literacy tests and violent intimidation. Among the efforts launched is Freedom
Summer, where close to a thousand civil rights workers of all races and backgrounds
converge on the South to support voting rights.
1963-64 -
No special tax to vote
No special tax to vote
24th Amendment passed. It guarantees that the right to vote in federal elections will
not be denied for failure to pay any tax. -
Voting age lowered
Voting age lowered to 18
26th Amendment passed, granting voting rights to 18-year-olds. The amendment is
largely a result of Vietnam War-protests demanding a lowering of the voting age on
the premise that people who are old enough to fight are old enough to vote. -
National voter registration Act
Making voter registration easier
National Voter Registration Act passed. Intends to increase the number of eligible
citizens who register to vote by making registration available at the Department of
Motor Vehicles, and public assistance and disabilities agencies. -
Help America Vote Act
Trying to solve election inconsistency with more federal voting standards
Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed in response to disputed 2000 presidential
election. Massive voting reform effort requires states comply with federal mandate
for provisional ballots, disability access, centralized, computerized voting lists,
electronic voting and requirement that first-time voters present identification before
voting.