Case Study 1: Component 1

This component explores the history of voter registration in the United States. Students should begin with the understanding that one of the primary reasons that voting proceeded in an unequal manner over the course of nearly two centuries is that decisions about who had a right to vote were not initially federally legislated.

States were the original decider of who met the qualifications to be a registered voter – and, thus, states controlled who was legally permitted to cast a vote. Prior to the Revolutionary War, few people found themselves qualified to vote. Some states restricted voting rights based on religious practices, some on the basis of gender or race, but the primary restriction on voting in early America was property ownership.

• Passage of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution
• Passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution
• Passage of the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution
• Passage of the Indian Citizenship Act
• Passage of the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution,

Exercises for This Component

To examine the ways that property ownership significantly limited the numbers of people who could be listed on a voter roll, students will be asked to consider Voter Registration in Virginia, as it existed as recently as the 1902 Virginia Constitution. This link (Virginia Legislation, 1867-1902) will provide three examples of changes to voter eligibility – and for this component, the focus is on the 1902 Virginia Constitution and the number of elements that a man had to meet in order to qualify as a voter.

Students should be divided into small groups for this exercise, and prior to reading the Virginia Constitution of 1902, they should be given the prompt to discuss amongst themselves how they believe these factors relate to voting in Virginia:

1. Age
2. Gender
3. Length of State Residency
4. Economics/Financial Situation
5. Military Service
6. Property Ownership
7. Literacy

After considering the text of the 1902 Virginia Constitution, students should now return to their original thoughts on these topics of age, gender, length of state residency, economics/financial situation, military service, property ownership, and literacy. Students should now consider ways in which these voter registration rules were used to deny rather than extend registration to all citizens. Examples of questions they might discuss:

• List four different types of qualifications that the state of Virginia applied to individuals attempting to register to vote as recently as 1902.
• In what ways do these barriers to Voter Registration stand to limit particular groups of people?
• What are the reasons behind these barriers?
• What elements of the 1902 Virginia Constitution provide legitimate protections to the practice of voting?

The United States Civil War is one of the major milestones of the nation moving towards a more comprehensive voting electorate – primarily because it helped establish that Black Americans were citizens. Establishing the right to vote and even quantifying Black Americans as citizens was not the original intention behind the acts that started the Civil War. Preventing the spread of the practice of enslavement to the American west motivated the conflict that began the war. The strong voices of Black Americans, who recognized this opportunity to secure not only their freedom from enslavement, but also their fundamental part of America as full citizens forced the federal government to more deeply consider how to best protect those rights.

The ratification of the 15th Amendment removed the restrictive element of race from the right to vote, extending that right to all citizens (15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870) | National Archives). One of the most powerful pieces of art that addresses the purpose of the 15th Amendment is Thomas Kelly’s The Fifteenth Amendment, which gives the viewer the explicit understanding that what Black Americans desired was the right to cast a vote alongside all of the other rights that accompanied recognition as a full citizen. (Kelly’s print is a useful classroom exercise to ask students to recognize/understand the elements of full citizenship that had been previously denied, and that the 15th Amendment guaranteed). Note, however, the Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution provides that “Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Is securing voter registration processes that empower all citizens implicit in this amendment? “Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Does this provide the federal government with the authority to oversee voter registration?

Well before the Civil War, women and those who supported the rights of women as citizens began to push the federal government to recognize their right to be counted as citizens in order to vote. In 1827, Susan B. Anthony, along with several other women, were arrested for “voting illegally,” as were two inspectors at the election site who allowed the women to cast their ballots (accepted them as registered voters).

The 19th Amendment, the result of decades of suffrage movements, broadened the federal definition of citizenship by including a provision that the right to vote could not be denied because of an individual’s sex. The women’s suffrage movement is also a good example of the global impact of voting issues – as women across the world sought to be recognized as full citizens of their respective nations. America’s push for suffrage was part of what’s known as the Transatlantic Women’s Suffrage Movement, which was fed by the efforts of Europeans (primarily the English). In 1848, a large gathering of women and supporters of women’s suffrage met in Seneca Falls, NY, where they produced the Declaration of Sentiments – their “call to arms” to the American people demanding that women be given “immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.” The Declaration of Sentiments - Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) is a transcription of the declaration – the printed version can be found here: “Declaration of Sentiments” | Seneca Falls and the Start of Annual Conventions | Seneca Falls and Building a Movement, 1776-1890 | Explore | Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote | Exhibitions at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress . Modeled specifically after the nation’s own Declaration of Independence, the “list of grievances” section specifically ties a woman’s rights to citizenship and voting: “Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides” ( 1848DeclarationofSentiments.pdf).

In the 20th century, the argument persisted for suffragettes that it was not only their right, but their duty as citizens, to register as voters and cast ballots to protect their communities.   

There remained, however, members of American society who were not recognized as being full citizens – and they remained unable to register to vote because they could not meet the first question of eligibility - citizenship. The original residents of the land we call America struggled for more than a century to secure their rights as citizens. Like many other types of citizenship and voting legislation, this happened incrementally. The Choctaw Nation notes that, in 1888, women who had married US citizens were officially recognized as citizens. Similarly, in 1919, World War I veterans who were Native Americans were also named as citizens (again linking military service to citizenship). The military service of Native Americans was considered so important to the passage of these additional rights that their heroic actions during WWI was part of the argument to convince Congress to pass the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.   

In some instances, restrictions on Native Americans being able to register to vote was directly related to their residence on tribal lands, which was interpreted as their citizenship resting solely within that separate tribal nation. Military service and its long connection to citizenship helped push the nation closer to extending full citizenship to all Native Americans. In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act was passed (also known as the Snyder Act), and recognized Native Americans born in the United States as full citizens.   

Despite the specific inclusion of Black Americans and Native Americans as citizens, individual state controls over the right to qualify and register voters prompted tactics like Literacy Tests and Poll Taxes to limit voter registration. In some cases throughout the nation’s history, the extension of a federal right to vote has been met with violent conflict.    

This amendment extended the right to vote to citizens age 18 or older. Youth Vote | Voters and Voting Rights | Presidential Elections and Voting in U.S. History | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress  

Encouraging the youth vote is particularly relevant to West Virginia. Senator Jennings Randolph introduced the 26th Amendment to the Constitution eleven times before its ultimate adoption in 1971 (proposed from 1942-1971) (Jennings Randolph Award). One of the fundamental reasons Randolph proposed the amendment was that, during World War II, President Roosevelt successfully pushed to lower the draft age from 21 to 18. In Senator Randolph’s words, “If they’re old enough for bullets, they’re old enough for ballots.” Some in the country did not believe that young people had enough “common sense” to understand the nation’s critical issues in a way that would promote informed voting. The highly unpopular Vietnam War heightened public interest in the 26th Amendment. The Senate, in 1971, voted 94 to 0 to pass the 26th Amendment, and the US House of Representatives quickly passed the amendment as well. Public support in 1971 was high – and 38 states ratified the amendment within the same year. Randolph’s proposal – the 26th amendment, passed more quickly than any other amendment to the US Constitution. 

President Richard Nixon invited a group of young people to the White House when he signed the official document enacting the amendment into law. To remember Senator Randolph’s legacy, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office awards high schools who register at least 85% of their eligible students for the vote. Watch YouTube video "U.S. Sen. Jennings Randolph Presented with the NASS Margaret Chase Smith American Democracy Award"

Exercise for This Component