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Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. Before and during the American Civil War, most African-Americans had not been able to vote. After the Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, causing some Southern Democrats and former Confederate states to institute actions such as poll taxes or language tests that were ostensibly not in contradiction to the U.S. Constitution at the time, but were used to limit and suppress voting access, most notably African American communities that made up large proportions of the population in those areas, but in many regions the majority of the electorate as a whole was functionally or officially unable to register to vote or unable to cast a ballot. African Americans' access to registration and voting in the South was often difficult until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and continues to be a subject of debate.
In the 21st century, some fear voter suppression has been revived, at least in part due to the 2013 US Supreme Court ruling of Shelby County v. Holder, which ruled that the enforcement of the Voting Right's Act power requiring that the federal government give preclearance to states with a history of voter discrimination was unconstitutional because it used a coverage formula based on over 40 year old data. Since then (and as of March 24, 2021), more than 361 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 47 states according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
