Voting, Elections, and Political Parties

The Expansion of Voting Rights and Suffrage

In a democratic republic, the legal authority of the government depends on the consent of the governed. Two essential terms used to describe this participation are suffrage and franchise, which both refer to the legal right to vote in public elections. When an individual or group is denied this fundamental access, it is known as disenfranchisement. Disenfranchisement refers to the revocation or restriction of an individual's right to vote. Early in United States history, voting was generally restricted to white male property owners, excluding the vast majority of the population from direct participation in choosing their leaders.

Over time, the United States Constitution was altered through several key amendments to expand suffrage and forbid discriminatory practices. The Fifteenth Amendment established that citizens could not be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Decades later, the Nineteenth Amendment expanded the franchise further by prohibiting denying a U.S. citizen the right to vote on account of sex. Later in the twentieth century, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment addressed age requirements, prohibiting denying citizens aged eighteen or older the right to vote on account of age.

Other constitutional changes removed structural and financial obstacles that stood between citizens and the ballot box. The Seventeenth Amendment established the direct election of United States senators by popular vote instead of state legislatures, giving citizens direct control over both chambers of Congress. For residents of the nation's capital, the Twenty-Third Amendment granted citizens of Washington, D.C., the right to participate in presidential elections by awarding the district electors. To address economic hurdles used to block voters, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment outlawed poll taxes as a voting requirement in federal elections.

Federal legislation has also played a crucial role in safeguarding franchise protections established by the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended literacy tests in jurisdictions covered by its formula; Congress later extended the ban nationwide. The act authorized federal oversight, including review of voting changes in covered jurisdictions, but the Supreme Court invalidated the coverage formula used for that review in 2013.