The Evolution of Voting Rights in the U.S.: Key Amendments and Legislation

in this video we're going to do a brief overview of how amendments to the constitution

and federal legislation have increased voting rights over time now why does this matter apart from just the innate

value of voting rights in a democracy it matters because who participates in the political process

at any one time affects what political outcomes are so as we go through these amendments and

laws which increase voting rights think about how each new group of voters might affect the overall opinion of the voting

population the first major expansion of voting rights happened in 1870 when the 15th amendment

was ratified and the 15th amendment extended suffrage the right to vote to african-american

men and men in particular at the time women were also hoping to get the right to

vote but there really was only the political will to grant suffrage to african-american men now this happened

immediately after the civil war which ended in 1865 and before the civil war really only

white men had the right to vote now the civil war ended slavery but it

didn't clear up the question of what the legal citizenship status of formerly enslaved men and women would

be and a lot of states in the south passed laws after the civil war specifically denying the right to vote

to african american men so in 1870 congress kind of fought back against this and they passed the 15th

amendment which was then ratified by the states the next notable expansion of voting rights didn't concern so much who

got to vote as who people got to vote for in 1913 the states ratified the 17th amendment which provided for the popular

election of senators so before 1913 senators were actually appointed by state legislatures

instead of directly elected by citizens like members of the house of representatives and switching to popular

election of senators is important because it gives citizens more say over the national government

so more say over who goes into congress and therefore more say over what kinds of laws that congress passes

and in 1920 women finally got the right to vote and the 19th amendment which doubled

the voting eligible population now let's talk about some more recent voting rights amendments and laws in

1964 and 1965 there were two amendments and pieces of federal legislation that had a major impact on african-american

voting rights now although african-american men technically got the

right to vote in 1870 african-american women technically got the right to vote in 1920 there were a

number of measures of voter suppression enacted in southern states that effectively prevented them from voting

one of these was the use of poll taxes which is effectively paying money for the right to vote the

24th amendment outlawed that and then the voting rights act took that a step further

by adding a number of other bans on voter suppression tactics in southern states

so in addition to poll taxes the voting rights act banned literacy tests and forms of voter suppression like

grandfather clauses which were laws that said you could only vote if your grandfather

had voted and while you might think oh literacy tests don't sound that bad it seems like a good idea to have a

literate voting population literacy tests really weren't fair because they were administered by local voting boards

who got to decide who was and was not literate so if you were an african-american man you could have been

a pulitzer prize-winning author and still had your local board say oh you're not literate so you're not eligible to

vote so things like poll taxes and literacy tests and grandfather clauses nowhere in the language of these voting

laws did they say you can't vote if you're black but they were very carefully crafted to specifically single

out and suppress the votes of african americans the voting rights act also provided for federal examiners

who had the power to register people to vote to monitor elections in jurisdictions

that had large black populations but few registered black voters and this effort was enormously successful

by the end of 1965 250 000

new african-american voters had been registered in southern states so imagine how all these new participants might

change legislative outcomes okay there are two more things i'd like to discuss now one aspect of voting rights you

might not have heard of is that until 1971 when the 26th amendment was ratified you

had to be 21 years old to vote now you can kind of guess at the reason behind this amendment based on its year 1971

the united states was involved in the vietnam war and young men were being drafted so it would have been possible

to be drafted for the u.s army at age 18 without ever having cast a vote it's amazing to think that the right to vote

for 18 year olds is less than 50 years old the last piece of legislation that i want to talk about is the motor voter

act which was passed in 1993 the official name of this is the national voter registration act of 1993 but it's

called the motor voter act because it requires states to provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote

when they apply for or renew their driver's license so this makes it easier to register to

vote in the first place and it makes it easier to maintain your voter registration if you move to a new state

because you'll need to get a new driver's license so you can quickly make sure you get on the polls to vote in

your new state the motor voter act also requires states to allow individuals to register by mail

30 days before a federal election and to allow individuals to register to vote if they're going to an office

providing services to people with disabilities or public assistance so in general the motor voter

act makes it easier for people to get registered to vote and to stay registered to vote so it kind of

removes barriers to political participation so i know there's a lot of information here it's a lot to take in

but the biggest thing to take away from this again is how participation affects outcomes who gets to vote and more

importantly who does vote in any given election has an enormous impact on what kinds of politicians we elect and what

kind of policies they enact