Voting rights have expanded and contracted throughout American history, and as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, that story is still being written. According to Lisa Kathleen Graddy, a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, when America was established, more people could vote here than anywhere else in the world, but it was still a fraction of the population of the United States.
Early Voting Rights
This right was initially reserved for property owners of a certain amount, a concept based on Great Britain’s hierarchical system. However, this idea that only wealthy property owners would vote lasted for a very short amount of time, as the country had just fought a war to throw off hierarchy.
A patchwork of state voting laws emerged in the decades that followed, and those protesting for expanded ballot access adopted some interesting tactics to get their message across. For example, a slogan-covered wagon, now on display at the Smithsonian, was taken on a publicity tour advocating for women’s suffrage around 1912.
Women’s Suffrage
Women were also the first people to picket the White House, which began in 1917 when then-President Woodrow Wilson refused to budge on women’s suffrage. Many protesters were fined, and a little over 100 were locked up when they refused to pay up. The women went on hunger strike and were forcibly fed, according to Graddy.
Eventually, those women got their way. The 19th Amendment was adopted in 1920, barring the denial of voting rights based on sex. The 15th Amendment, which sought to protect the voting rights of Black men, was adopted into the U.S. Constitution decades earlier, in 1870.
Continued Voting Rights Battles
Even with those federal protections on paper, the battle over ballot access persisted. In mostly Southern states, laws like poll taxes and literacy tests continued to suppress the vote of Black and some poor white Americans in the Jim Crow era.
The 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in federal elections, but some states continued to charge those fees in state and local elections afterwards. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1966 ultimately ended poll taxes for all levels of government.
Around the same time, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which put guardrails on states to prevent racial discrimination in elections. The effort gained momentum after a bloody attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama.
Today, the story of voting rights is still being written. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, state legislatures enacted at least 32 restrictive voting laws in 2025, tying the highest total since the center began tracking this legislation in 2011.
Original reporting: KOAT Albuquerque — read the source article.
