The people voted into local, state and federal offices make the decisions that affect your daily life. They decide how much resources your schools get, if the roads are fixed and whether you have access to health care. They also determine how well our country handles issues like climate change, job security and immigration laws. That’s why it’s crucial for everyone to vote and to encourage others to do the same.
The right to vote is a fundamental American value that was hard-won for many. Throughout the country’s history, the ability to vote was restricted or denied, in law and in practice, to the poor, nonwhites and women. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution prevents state governments and political subdivisions from denying the right to vote on the basis of race or color. Other key milestones included the Wyoming law that granted women voting rights in 1869 and the Nineteenth Amendment that gave all US citizens the right to vote in 1920. The Twenty-fourth Amendment ratified in 1964 ended poll taxes and literacy tests in federal elections, while the Supreme Court struck down grandfather clauses in 1915 and whites-only primaries in 1944.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark piece of legislation signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson to put an end to state and local voter suppression tactics designed to keep Black voters from casting ballots. However, the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the protections of the act, and studies by the Brennan Center and others show that racial disparities in voter turnout have widened since then.