Fast forward to 1869, when the 14th amendment was ratified. Slaves were emancipated, allowing voting access to the black men only. Four years later, the 15th amendment passed, saying that votes couldn’t be denied based on race. However, this didn’t solve much, because Americans still used other tactics, such as violent intimidation and impossible literary tests, to hinder African-American’s actual ability to vote. Women gained the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment.
Throughout the 1900s, voting was still very unfair (and, as you’ll see, it isn’t exact fair today either). At the beginning of the century, women, Chinese, Latinos, and African Americans couldn’t vote. It was a long and strenuous process for people of all cultures to finally reach equality, mainly reached in the mid 60’s. The voting taxes were removed in ‘64, and full equality was reached in the Voting Rights Act, which banned any form of discrimination from voting.
Unfortunately, there were still efforts to bar minorities and poor people from voting after the Voting Rights Act. There were impossible “literacy” tests (see picture below to see how ludicrous they were) which were given to black people, and if they failed them then they weren't allowed to vote. Today, district lines are drawn so that, by the electoral college, people who want to vote one way are overshadowed by the opposition’s majority in the district, essentially discounting the minorities’ votes. Of course, there are still threats concerning voting made to minorities that go under the media’s radar. Even today, citizens of Washington, DC, who are mostly black, don’t have representation in congress.
Still, America has improved greatly over the centuries, and we are still slowly but surely improving the foundation of our democracy ― the people. Time will tell if we ever achieve perfect voting equality.
The Voting Rights Act was the first actual law that stated that you would be prosecuted if you were found guilty of barring citizens from being able to vote during elections. That being said, the majority of Americans are not taking advantage of the rights that have been granted. Even though back around the 1840s, where 90% of all eligible voters voted, where in the 2016 election, less than 60% of all eligible voters voted for one of the more contested presidential races of all time. Although there are rights granted to Americans, they are not necessarily granted to everyone, as many people will attempt to discourage citizens from voting, specifically this past election in 2016. Although the state could have gone to the losing candidate, it just goes to show how much of a difference wrong influence can hurt the election process.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html
This is a very informative and explanatory post about the progression of voting rights throughout American history. Building off of your discussion of how minorities have been historically deprived of their rights to representation, another practice that manipulates representation is gerrymandering. Although the practice does not grant or take away anyone's right to vote, it does try to influence election outcomes in a partisan way. By maneuvering districts for partisan benefit, our government is undermining the idea of equal representation by forcing partisan majorities, as evident in the map in the source below.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/13/this-is-actually-what-america-would-look-like-without-gerrymandering/?utm_term=.69cea1b2b764