- 15th Amendment.
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870,[1] as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
- Literacy Tests.
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s[1] and 1960s, literacy tests were administered to prospective voters, and this had the effect of disenfranchising African Americans and others with diminished access to education. Other countries, notably Australia, as part of its White Australia policy, and South Africa adopted literacy tests either to exclude certain racialized groups from voting or from immigrating.
- Poll Taxes.
Payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states until 1965. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included a grandfather clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. [3] These laws, along with unfairly implemented literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation,[4] achieved the desired effect of disenfranchising Asian-American, Native American voters and poor whites as well, but in particular the poll tax was disproportionately directed at African-American voters.
- The White Primary.
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Carolina (1896),[1] Florida (1902),[2] Mississippi and Alabama (also 1902), Texas (1905),[3] Louisiana[1] and Arkansas (1906),[4] and Georgia (1900).[5] Since winning the Democratic primary in the South almost always meant winning the general election, barring black and other minority voters meant they were in essence disenfranchised. Southern states also passed laws and constitutions with provisions to raise barriers to voter registration, completing disenfranchisement from 1890 to 1908 in all states of the former Confederacy.
In 1944, in Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 against the Texas white primary system.[7] In that case, the Court ruled that the 1923 Texas state law was unconstitutional, because it allowed the state Democratic Party to racially discriminate
- Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.[7][8] It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections.[7] Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.[9] It is also "one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history."
- Coverage and Preclearance.
Section 5[134] requires that covered jurisdictions receive federal approval, known as "preclearance", before implementing changes to their election laws. A covered jurisdiction has the burden of proving that the change does not have the purpose or effect of discriminating on the basis of race or language minority status; if the jurisdiction fails to meet this burden, the federal government will deny preclearance and the jurisdiction's change will not go into effect.
- Shelby County v Holder.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision[1] of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.
- John R Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 (H.R. 4) is proposed legislation that would restore and strengthen parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, certain portions of which were struck down by two Supreme Court decisions of Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.[1][2] Particularly, it would restore the Voting Rights Act's requirement that certain states pre-clear certain changes to their voting laws with the federal government.[3] It was re-introduced in the 117th Congress, and is named after late Georgia Representative and voting rights activist John Lewis.
