From the Gallup Vault (1941): Lining Up Against Poll Taxes

Southerns states with poll taxes wanted to keep them.

- Click here for the article.

In February 1941, Gallup found more than six in 10 Americans in favor of abolishing the poll taxes still prevalent in the American South. A majority of adults in the five southern states that had no poll tax at that time also wanted to abolish them. However, across the eight southern states where poll taxes were still in force -- Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia -- the majority of residents wanted to keep them.

Poll taxes, which charged voters $1 to $2 ($7 to $15 today) to register to vote, emerged in the South after the Civil War as a way to prevent the poor, and particularly African Americans, from participating in elections. In combination with literacy tests, "whites-only Democratic Party primaries," and onerous rules about when and how to pay the poll tax, these laws resulted in a sharp drop-off in voter registration among the target groups.

Gallup's April 2, 1941, news release presented the unvarnished views of several southern poll respondents about the poll tax. A 76-year-old Arkansas farmer who favored abolishing the tax said, "You can't find a man in this whole country that voted for the poll tax in the first place -- it was just put on and run over the people." Another Arkansas farmer said, "It's gotten so rotten the way they purchase those poll taxes that the whole poll tax system ought to be done away with."

But respondents in favor of retaining the poll tax expressed very different perspectives. A 40-year-old farm wife in Mississippi plainly said, "Poll taxes help pay for the schools and keep the Negroes from voting." An insurance agent from Virginia expressed a more civic-minded view, saying, "We ought to keep the poll tax because when you pay a tax you're more interested in the results of an election." And then there was the "poor white farmer in the deep South" who said, "Better keep the poll tax because if we don't have it some people will just vote 'cause somebody gives 'em a bottle of whiskey or a dollar bill."

From the NYT: Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights to Felons

We discussed Texas' policy on voting rights for felons in class. Many states prevent people convicted of felonies to ever regain the right to vote. Virginia was one. Not any more. The decision has a political dimension to it since it is likely to benefit Democrats.

- Click here for the article.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing the Republican-run legislature. The action effectively overturns a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.

The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole or probation to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe’s political party.

Amid intensifying national attention over harsh sentencing policies that have disproportionately affected African-Americans, governors and legislatures around the nation have been debating — and often fighting over — moves to restore voting rights for convicted felons. Virginia imposes especially harsh restrictions, barring felons from voting for life.

In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, a newly elected Republican, recently overturned an order enacted by his Democratic predecessor that was similar to the one Mr. McAuliffe signed Friday. In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed a measure to restore voting rights to convicted felons, but Democrats in the state legislature overrode him in February and an estimated 44,000 former prisoners who are on probation can now register to vote.

“There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans — we should remedy it,” Mr. McAuliffe said in an interview Thursday, previewing the announcement he made on the steps of Virginia’s Capitol, just yards from where President Abraham Lincoln once addressed freed slaves. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”

Republicans in the Virginia Legislature have resisted measures to expand voting rights for convicted felons, and Mr. McAuliffe’s action, which he said was justified under an expansive legal interpretation of his executive clemency authority, provoked an immediate backlash. Virginia Republicans issued a statement Friday accusing the governor of “political opportunism” and “a transparent effort to win votes.”

“Those who have paid their debts to society should be allowed full participation in society,” said the statement from the party chairman, John Whitbeck. “But there are limits.” He said Mr. McAuliffe was wrong to issue a blanket restoration of rights, even to those who “committed heinous acts of violence.”

The order includes those convicted of violent crimes, including murder and rape. There is no way to know how many of the newly eligible voters in Virginia will register. “My message is going to be that I have now done my part,” Mr. McAuliffe said.
Nationally, an estimated 5.85 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of felony convictions, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington research organizations, which says one in five African-Americans in Virginia cannot vote.
Only two states, Maine and Vermont, have no voting restrictions on felons; Virginia is among four – the others are Kentucky, Florida and Iowa – that have the harshest restrictions.

From the Texas Almanac: Voter Participation in Texas

I can't find a good way to copy and paste this document, but it deserves to be the subject of an entire lecture - and will be for ACC 2306 students later this semester.

It walks through basic facts associated with voter participation in Texas including turnout and changes in suffrage. It has some surprising facts. For example, until 1954 members of the American armed forces could not vote in Texas.

- Click here for it.

A blast from the past: Texas Military Voting Qualifications, Proposition 2 (1954)

Members of the military - of the United States - could not vote in Texas prior to the passage of this amendment. It was ratified by a vote of 77% to 23%.

- Click here Ballotpedia's info on it.
- The Texas Reference Library has detail on what else was on the ballot.

Here's the language:

For the amendment of Sections 1 and 2 of Article VI of the Constitution of Texas so as to confer the privilege to vote upon members of the regular establishment of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force, or component branches thereof, who are otherwise qualified electors; and so as to limit voting by persons in the military service of the United States to the county in which the voter resided at the time of entering such service; and for the repeal of Section 2a of Article VI of the Constitution, which now permits qualified electors in military service to vote without payment of a poll tax in time of war.

Notice that they didn't have to pay a poll tax. I wonder if this reflects changing attitudes about the United States military following WW2. The military occupation of Texas was a distant memory.

A blast from the past: Texas Poll Tax Payment, Proposition 1 (1902)

I love BallotPedia. This was the only constitutional amendment on the ballot that year. It passed 65% to 35%.

- Click here for the link from Ballotpedia.

For the terminology of the joint resolution passed by the 27th session of the legislature, click here.

This was the wording on the ballot:

Amending Article 6, Section 2, of the Constitution of the State of Texas, requiring all persons subject to a poll tax to have paid a poll tax and to hold a receipt for same before they otter to vote at any election in this State, and fixing the time of payment of said tax.

A couple pages down you'll find the concurrent resolution designating the bluebonnet as the state flower.

Here's a description of the politics of that time from the Texas State Law Library:

By 1901 the movement to make payment of the poll tax a voting requirement had become so strong that the legislature proposed the amendment, and it was adopted in 1902 by an overwhelming majority. No single factor can account for the success of the poll tax voting requirement movement; the issue had been constantly pressed upon the public consciousness for years, and over that period various circumstances and developments eventually led segments of the population to favor it. At least three important elements were involved. First, there was the desire to "purify" the ballot, which was one of the reasons most often advanced by supporters of the 1902 amendment who felt vote-buying and other fraudulent election practices could be reduced by adding to the cost of voting and by more carefully regulating election administration. Second, many saw the poll tax as a means to legally disfranchise the Negro. (See Strong, "The Rise of Negro Voting in Texas," 42 American Political Science Review 510 (1948).) Third, the successes of the Populist movement in the late 19th century threatened the entrenched Democratic Party and led to a desire to disfranchise the poor farmers and laborers who formed the backbone of the radical Populist Party.

It was all about keeping the Democratic Party in power.

- Click here for a look at the source of the above text.

From The Dish: America’s Trust Deficit

The Dish points to a story in 538 that argues that opinions about Obamacare are low due to the decreasing level of trust American hove to government - which almost always means the national government.

- Click here for the post.

Both links are worth reading, but I like it because it contains this great graph based on poll results from the American National Election Studies:



The graph should be self explanatory. I posted it because it helps support one of my working theories about why the world works the way it does.

Everything changed in 1964.
Why? That was the year the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the next year the Voting Rights Act was passed. Suddenly the national government - and the state and local governments as well - had to respond to the needs of populations that had been previously excluded.

I have no proof - but I'll work on it one day.

From Buzzfeed: What The 2012 Election Would Have Looked Like Without Universal Suffrage

This is great info. What would the 2012 election result have been if suffrage had not been expended over American history? What if there has been no 15th mendment for example? These maps show us. Here's what the result would have been like if only white men could vote (nothing on if only white male proerty owners could vote - pity, but we could probably guess).

“swilling the planters with bumbo”

Here's a fun little story about elections from years back.

In Washington’s day, elections were largely an excuse to party. Voting presented a rare opportunity for people to gather from miles around, catch up with their neighbors, and imbibe liberally. Crafty politicians capitalized on the festive climate to rack up votes. In fact, it was difficult for anyone to win an election without wining and dining his constituents. Though it was technically illegal to explicitly purchase gifts for voters, it was perfectly appropriate for a politician to buy a round for two hundred of his closest friends on Election Day.

From Forbes: America's Illegal Pioneers

For 2301, as we discuss the factors that lead to the initial expansion of participation to non-property owners as they spread westward, a reminder that much of their activity was illegal:

Everyone knows that America was settled by immigrants. But few realize how much of this settlement was done illegally. Shortly after winning independence, Congress enacted legislation that called for newly acquired western lands to be divided into large 640-acre plots and sold for a dollar an acre.

This scheme proved proved impractical. As economist Hernando de Soto has written, few settlers had either $640 or the legal expertise to navigate America’s cumbersome property laws. And so thousands of migrants simply ignored the law and settled illegally on vacant land.

Offended by their disrespect for the law and worried about lost revenue, the federal government responded harshly. The US Army began evicting illegal squatters and destroying their homes. In 1807, Congress increased the penalties for squatting and beefed up the federal government’s enforcement powers.

These crackdowns failed. As migrants continued to pour west, it became obvious that the federal and state governments lacked the resources to evict more than a fraction of the lawbreakers. Around the same time, states began to eliminate property qualifications for voting. Politicians who had viewed squatters merely as common criminals began to see an opportunity to curry favor with these new constituents.

Legal Challenges to Texas Redistricting Begins

For 2301 primarily, recall that Texas falls under the Voting Rights Act and its districts have to be precleared by a panel of federal judges due to Texas' history of racial gerrymandering. Latino political leaders think they have a strong case that the recently passed plan illegally dilutes their power. While the bulk of population growth in the state was due to an increase in the Latino population, none of the new congressional districts are likely to lead to the election of a Latino to Congress, or so they claim.

- Texas Seeks Clearance for Political Maps.

- Redistricting Fights Move From Capitol to Courthouse.

Comment or Vote

From a link taken from the post below, possibly the greatest video ever made.

http://www.commentorvote.com/

Disenfranchising Democrats

A few posts argue that Republican controlled legislatures are making it more difficult for groups that tend to vote Democrat to vote.

- The GOP's war on voting.
- Disenfranchising Democrats.
- Voter Disenfranchisement.

The three dominant techniques seem to be Voter ID laws, limiting the right of ex-felons to vote, and disenfranchising college students.

Should Public Employees Have the Right to Vote?

Pat Sajak thinks maybe not.

Aubrey v. Kippers

Two guys go head to head on ning over whether we make it too easy to vote.

We need your input. Jump into the conversation.

Does Voter Fraud Exist?

Dahlia Lithwick says no.

Large-scale, coordinated vote stealing doesn't happen. The incentives—unlike the incentives for registration fraud—just aren't there. In an interview this week with Salon, Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College, who has studied vote fraud systematically, noted that "between 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty others were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five were guilty of voting more than once. That's 26 criminal voters." Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that U.S. attorneys, like David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired for searching high and low for vote-fraud cases to prosecute and coming up empty. Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that five days before the 2006 election, then-interim U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman exuberantly (and futilely) indicted four ACORN workers, even when Justice Department policy barred such prosecutions in the days before elections. RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has said he is unaware of a single improper vote cast because of bad cards submitted in the course of a voter-registration effort. Republican campaign consultant Royal Masset says, "[I]n-person voter fraud is nonexistent. It doesn't happen, and ... makes no sense because who's going to take the risk of going to jail on something so blatant that maybe changes one vote?"

Tracking Problems in Voting

Wired Magazine has created a map where people who have problems voting will be able to make their problems known.

Should be worth watching.

Voting in the Good Old Days

Wasn't really that good. No big surprise probably.

From the New Yorker, an overview of elections past. Lucky all we have to worry about is being purged:

On the morning of November 2, 1859—Election Day—George Kyle, a merchant with the Baltimore firm of Dinsmore & Kyle, left his house with a bundle of ballots tucked under his arm. Kyle was a Democrat. As he neared the polls in the city’s Fifteenth Ward, which was heavily dominated by the American Party, a ruffian tried to snatch his ballots. Kyle dodged and wheeled, and heard a cry: his brother, just behind him, had been struck. Next, someone clobbered Kyle, who drew a knife, but didn’t have a chance to use it. “I felt a pistol put to my head,” he said. Grazed by a bullet, he fell. When he rose, he drew his own pistol, hidden in his pocket. He spied his brother lying in the street. Someone else fired a shot, hitting Kyle in the arm. A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. . . .

That's just the beginning.

Ex-Offenders and the Vote

In response to a question I received about the ability of ex-offenders to vote I pulled this up from nonprofitvote.org:

In Texas, ex-offenders regain the right to vote only after completion of both their prison term and time served on probation and parole. It is recommended that ex-offenders re-register or update their voter registration after completion of sentence.

They also provide links to further information regrading such laws across the country from The Brennan Center and The Sentencing Project.

Looking at the map in the Brennan Center site made me wonder whether there is a relationship between state laws about voter and partisan results. One of the arguments made about party positions on the issue is that it all boils down to whether they think the ex-felons will vote for them or not. Here's an opportunity to find out if the argument has merit.