And here, in this very first paragraph of the declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can “the consent of the governed” be given, if the right to vote be denied.
—SUSAN B. ANTHONY, 1872
For more than two hundred years, women and other excluded Americans have struggled against stout resistance from elite white men for their right to vote. Women gained the vote in 1920 after a campaign that began in the 1840s and only ended after suffragists picketed in front of the White House gates, braved arrest, organized hunger strikes in prison, and suffered forced-feedings. At the height of the suffrage movement, most states were making voting more difficult through registration and residency requirements. In the South, where most African Americans lived, only white women realistically secured the right to vote in 1920. African Americans lost the vote in the antebellum years, regained the vote during the post–Civil War Reconstruction, and soon lost their rights to white supremacists who “redeemed” southern governments. They secured the right to vote again only during the “Second Reconstruction” of the 1960s, after voting rights protesters suffered beatings, arrests, and even death.
The struggle for the vote has historically come from the bottom up, not the top down, with victories tempered by setbacks and defeats. Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among other noted figures, led grassroots campaigns for the vote. In recent years, however, groups with the resources to sustain and finance voting rights litigation have achieved victories against voter photo ID laws, racial and partisan gerrymandering, and legislation intended to restrict the registration and voting opportunities for minority groups. The U.S. Supreme Court has authorized the use of independent commissions to draw redistricting plans. Still, the centuries-long battle for full suffrage rights for all Americans remains unfinished. In our own time, restrictions on voting still pose barriers to the franchise for tens of millions of Americans, with burdens falling most heavily on African Americans and other minorities. The outcome of efforts to stymie partisan gerrymandering remains uncertain, and wealthy special interests have an outsized influence on the outcomes of elections and public policy in America’s national, state, and local governments.
The vote has been embattled for centuries in the United States in large part because Americans lack an explicit constitutional right to vote. American patriots fought the Revolutionary War not just to gain independence from Britain’s harsh rule but to establish a radical new principle for their time: sovereignty of the people. The American people, not the birthright of kings and nobles, would determine the destiny of the new republic. Still, the people would rule indirectly through elected representatives in what became a democratic republic. To balance popular sovereignty with the threat to order and liberty posed by voters who supposedly lacked the will and ability to resist dangerous demagogues, the founding fathers opposed universal voting. In their view, the vote should be granted only to men who possessed the economic status that ensured an investment in the land and a wise and independent vote. Beyond the fearful rhetoric of mob rule in America, hard, practical politics also motivated this restrictive view of the franchise. America’s slave-holding and commercial elite believed that voting by men of property and standing would best protect their economic interests and preserve their control over the government.
With the Constitution silent on the matter, the individual states decided who could vote and who could not. States initially granted the franchise primarily to men who held property or paid taxes. Yet in some ways voting in the early republic was less restrictive than today. Almost no one had to register prior to voting or present forms of written identification. Voters at the polls only had to swear to their identity. Some states allowed voting by noncitizens who owned property or paid taxes. Most states only laxly enforced voting requirements. Some technically ineligible voters cast ballots by simply showing up at the polls.
The vote has been a controversial issue through to the present day, with no simple, linear progression of expanded voting rights. As the states eased economic requirements for voting and expanded the range of elected offices in the antebellum period, they implemented the idea of a white man’s republic by shutting off votes for African Americans and continuing to exclude women and Native Americans from the franchise. The Fifteenth Amendment nominally secured votes for African Americans but left the door open for disenfranchisement through literacy tests, poll taxes, and white primaries.
Even the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not preclude the restriction of minority voting through felon disenfranchisement, voter purges, photo ID laws, and racially and politically gerrymandered legislative districts. The elimination of Justice Department preclearance by the U.S. Supreme Court has enabled states and localities to discriminate against minority voters through the reduction of polling places and other small but consequential and unchecked maneuvers. Advocates of voting rights do not have the ability to file court challenges against every discriminatory change in voting practice.
The stakes in the ongoing battle over the vote could not be higher, especially with Americans voting for half a million elected offices, one for about every five hundred adult citizens in the United States. Nonvoters can influence politics in various ways, through lobbying, demonstrations, fundraising, and participation in political debates. Most of these activities, however, are weighted toward the wealthy.
Americans become decision-makers only if they vote in elections and can make their vote count. The issue of voter turnout has clouded the history of voting in the United States, with authorities disputing the role of voter apathy versus structural impediments. Even though Americans have fought and died for the vote, the United States ranks near the bottom among other democratic nations in voter turnout of its citizens. Low turnout creates a political vacuum that enables wealthy special interest groups to gain undue influence over American elections and policy, to the detriment of the common good. Partisan and racial gerrymandering has also robbed voters of the opportunity to participate in truly competitive elections.
Despite dismal turnout, many states have enacted a new wave of restrictive voting laws in the twenty-first century. In a contentious national debate that has spilled into courtrooms, defenders argue that such measures reasonably ensure the integrity and smooth administration of elections, while critics claim that they resurrect discriminatory burdens on voting by racial minorities, the poor, and young people. The debate is bitterly partisan, fueled by intense polarization between Republicans and Democrats and racially linked patterns of voting for the parties. The alleged targets of restrictive new laws on registration and voting, adopted almost exclusively by Republican-controlled state governments, are their Democratic opponents. Multiple studies and court findings have proved that claims of voter fraud have no validity and are nothing more than smokescreens for measures to limit the votes of political opponents.
As the second decade of the twenty-first century nears its end, American democracy is in crisis. Cynicism about government has soared to record levels, and voter turnout lags most other developed nations. As many states moved to facilitate voting, a counter-revolution fueled by extreme partisanship and polarization made voting more difficult, especially for minorities. The Russians, who compromised the presidential election of 2016, will strive to do so again, and neither the president nor Congress has shown an inclination to retaliate or adopt strong preventive measures. The nation remains mired in a fragmented, eighteenth-century system of election administration by more than ten thousand localities, and the Trump administration has not yet provided national assistance for safeguarding registration rolls and voting machines. Instead, the administration has abetted the push for voter restrictions by making false claims about illegal voting in American elections.
In some ways, modern American democracy resembles the economic stakeholder model of more than two centuries ago. Restrictions on registration and voting, and alienation from politics have combined to produce a “party of nonvoters” that is disproportionately minority, young, and economically disadvantaged. A Pew Research Center survey of the 2014 midterm electorate found that 43 percent of nonvoters were nonwhite, compared to 22 percent of voters; 34 percent of nonvoters were under the age of thirty, compared to 10 percent of voters; and 46 percent of nonvoters had family incomes under thirty thousand dollars per year, compared to 19 percent of voters.1
Experience in the United States and abroad demonstrates that there are pathways to reforming the vote in America. A constitutional right to vote, expanded motor voter registration, same-day registration, anti-gerrymandering requirements, independent redistricting commissions, the revival of voting rights preclearance, mandates for paper ballot trails, and secure voting technology would advance the democratic goal of assuring that America is governed truly by the consent of the governed. Still, reform of the vote will not come easily from the politicians. It may not be necessary any longer to risk dying for the vote, but change will come only through the kind of concerted, grassroots action that prompted Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act. “When too many Americans don’t vote or participate, some see apathy and despair,” said the late Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone. “I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action.”2