Did You Know...
Question: When the United States became a country you had to be a white male landowner to vote. Approximately what percentage of the population could vote?
Answer: 4%.
Question: In what decade did Native Americans get the right to vote?
Answer: 1924. Prior to the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, Native Americans
were considered citizens of their own tribes and not the United States and
therefore could not vote.
Question: What practice did the 24th amendment prohibit?
Answer: Poll taxes
Question: What was the grandfather clause and when was it ruled unconstitutional?
Answer: The grandfather clause was enacted by seven Southern states between 1895 and 1910 to deny suffrage to African Americans. It provided that those who had enjoyed the right to vote prior to 1866 or 1867, and their lineal descendants, would be exempt from recently enacted educational, property, or tax requirements for voting. Because former slaves were not granted the franchise until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, those clauses worked effectively to exclude Black people from the vote while assuring the franchise to many impoverished and illiterate whites. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1915 that the grandfather clause was unconstitutional because it violated equal voting rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment, it was not until President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Congress put an end to the discriminatory practice. The act abolished voter prerequisites and also allowed for federal supervision of voter registration. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Fifteenth Amendment was finally enforceable.
Question: What was the Chinese Exclusion Act?
Answer: Enacted in 1882, The Chinese Exclusion Act blocked Chinese workers from
coming legally into the country, and blocked Chinese immigrants who were
already living here from becoming US citizens. It was repealed in 1943 when
China became our ally in WWII.
Question: What year was the voting age changed from 21 to 18?
Answer: 1971. Under the rallying cry “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” in
response to activism during the Vietnam War, it won congressional backing on
March 23, 1971, and was ratified by the states on July 1, 1971—marking the
shortest interval between Congressional approval and ratification of an
amendment in US history. The administrator of general services officially certified
ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment on July 7.
Question: What year did California extend suffrage to women?
Answer: 1911. On Election Day, October 10, 1911, the measure was soundly defeated
in the San Francisco Bay Area and barely passed in Los Angeles. Disheartened and
disappointed, suffragists began to plan yet another campaign when late reports
from rural counties began to swing the vote in their favor. When the long count
was finally completed several days later, Equal Suffrage had passed by only 3,587
votes – an average majority of one vote in each precinct in the state. The final
count was 125,037 to 121,450, making California the 6th state in the nation to
give women the right to vote.
Question: What year did California change the law to allow restoration of voting rights to felons once they were no longer in prison.
Answer: 2020. Proposition 17 passed with a 58.6% yes vote.