tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/15th-amendment-83848/articles15th Amendment – The Conversation2023-06-30T19:18:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083542023-06-30T19:18:54Z2023-06-30T19:18:54Z‘We the People’ includes all Americans – but July 4 is a reminder that democracy remains a work in progress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535045/original/file-20230630-19-9rx4tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the Constitution was written, the term 'We the People' had a very limited application for voting rights.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/108914576/photo/a-protestor-holding-a-placard-in-front-of-the-us-capitol-building.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=On4svGb-O5Cv9XvMXuS4wV-FzqfSsO0ZdpW4o5yzjNM=">Antenna/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States’ founders firmly rejected King George III and the entire idea of monarchy 247 years ago, on July 4, 1776. </p>
<p>Political power does not come from some absolute authority of a king over people, the founders argued. Rather, political power comes from the <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-39">people themselves</a>. And these people must <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript">agree to any authority</a> <a href="https://academy4sc.org/video/representative-vs-direct-democracy-power-of-the-people/">governing their society</a>. </p>
<p>This is why the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">U.S. Constitution</a> starts with the words “We the People,” and not “I, the ruler.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph-Jones-8">I am</a> a historian, ethicist and media scholar <a href="https://www.psu.edu/news/bellisario-college-communications/story/dissertation-focused-food-journalism-earns-annual-davis/">and have studied</a> how people build communities.</p>
<p>America’s founders did not trust everyone’s ability to equally participate in the <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/gov/1c.asp">new democracy</a>, as laws at the time showed. </p>
<p>But, because of policy changes on issues like voting, the idea of who actually is represented in the phrase “We the People” has <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/we-people-united-states">changed over time</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting depicts men dressed in old fashioned clothing in a large room crowded around some men on a raised platform." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535047/original/file-20230630-41655-azdorj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other founders prepare to sign the Constitution in 1787.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/525372757/photo/signing-the-us-constitution.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=fUS2e0GJevIjoW2km_VDY6Y7syikiU8nt-86W9eXopM=">GraphicaArtis/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>First steps</h2>
<p>In 1776, only <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/the-founders-and-the-vote/">white men who owned property</a> had the right to vote.</p>
<p>“Few men, who have no property, have any judgment of their own,” as former President John Adams <a href="https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1645">wrote in 1776</a>.</p>
<p>As activists – including <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/women-who-fought-for-the-vote-1">some women</a> and <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/vote/people">Black Americans</a> – proclaimed their equality, <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED606970.pdf">public education spread</a>, and <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/voting-rights-throughout-history/">social thinking shifted</a>. </p>
<p>By about 1860, all state legislatures had lifted <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/the-founders-and-the-vote/">property requirement for voting</a>. Allowing only wealthy property owners to vote did not align with the democratic notion that “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/the-founders-and-the-vote/">all men are created equal</a>.” </p>
<p>While some states, <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-8-1-b-who-voted-in-early-america">like Vermont</a>, eliminated the property voting requirement in the 18th century, this shift became more popular in the 1820s and the 1830s. </p>
<p>Congress passed the 15th Amendment in 1870, <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/15th-amendment">giving Black men</a> and others the right to vote, regardless of race.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-native-americans/">that amendment still excluded</a> some people, chiefly Native Americans and women. </p>
<h2>An unfinished history</h2>
<p>Despite the 15th Amendment, violence and intimidation in some states still <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/#:%7E:text=Until%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20struck,people%20whose%20ancestors%20were%20slaves.">prevented Black men from voting</a>.</p>
<p>State lawmakers also used bureaucratic measures, such as a poll tax, renewed attempts at a property requirement and literacy tests, to prevent African Americans from voting. </p>
<p>The fight over <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/vote">African American suffrage</a> continued for decades, and many courageous Americans protested and were arrested or killed in the struggle to exercise their voting rights. </p>
<p>Thanks to the work of <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/voting-rights/">civil rights activists</a> – including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Lewis-American-civil-rights-leader-and-politician">John Lewis</a>, <a href="https://time.com/5692775/fannie-lou-hamer/">Fannie Lou Hamer</a> and <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/mlk-topic/voter-registration">Marting Luther King Jr.</a> – public opinion shifted. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, Congress passed additional legal measures to protect the voting rights of Black Americans. This included the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-24/">24th Amendment</a>, which outlawed the use of poll taxes, and the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">1965 Voting Rights Act</a>, which prohibited any racial discrimination in voting. </p>
<h2>Women’s turn</h2>
<p>In 1920, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-women/">women gained</a> the right to vote with the addition of the 19th Amendment, following another decadeslong struggle.</p>
<p>Women’s rights activists made the first organized call for female suffrage at the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-19/">Seneca Falls Convention in 1848</a>. </p>
<p>In the following years, suffragists pushed for <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage">constitutional amendments, state laws and a change in public thinking</a> to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001287">include women</a> in “We the People.” </p>
<h2>Native American rights</h2>
<p>Having self-governed for centuries, Native Americans were not legally recognized with voting rights until Congress approved the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-in-1924-all-indians-made-united-states-citizens">Indian Citizenship Act</a> in 1924.</p>
<p>While that supposedly gave Native Americans the same rights as other Americans, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-native-americans/">Native Americans faced the same tactics</a>, like violence, that white racists used to prevent Black Americans from voting. </p>
<p>Like other people excluded from “We the People,” <a href="https://medium.com/indigenously/meet-the-indigenous-women-who-fought-for-the-vote-ecdc335fb29f">Native Americans</a> have continued to push for voting rights and other ways to ensure <a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/history-of-native-american-voting-rights">they are included in American self-government</a>. </p>
<h2>Making democracy more democratic</h2>
<p>In 1971 “We the People” again expanded, to include younger people, with the <a href="https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/37022">lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18</a>. The ongoing <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/winning-vote-history-voting-rights">Vietnam War shifted public opinion</a>, and there was popular support for the idea that someone old enough to die fighting for their country should also be able to vote. </p>
<p>A government once described by Abraham Lincoln as “<a href="https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm">of the people, by the people, and for the people</a>” was now going to technically include all of the people.</p>
<p>But equality for women, young people and racially marginalized groups did not change overnight. </p>
<p>Social equality remains far off for many people, including undocumented immigrants, for example, and LGBTQ+ individuals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person walks past a white sign that says 'Vote here.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535049/original/file-20230630-17-732pno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While some states have it made it harder to vote in recent years, others have made it easier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1204917011/photo/voters-in-14-states-head-to-the-polls-on-super-tuesday.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=x4w0NYntBddlGQ41pzexXLAg9bTXcyG8Es8oaEbou60=">Stephen Maturen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Current limitations to ‘We the People’</h2>
<p>The government has recognized that citizens over the age of 18 have a right to participate in self-government. But there are still political and legal attempts to <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-june-2023">restrict people’s</a> ability to vote. </p>
<p>While some states have passed new laws that make it harder to vote in recent years, other states have made it easier. </p>
<p>North Carolina passed new <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2023/04/28/nc-supreme-court-reverses-previous-opinion-deems-voter-id-law-constitutional/">ID requirements</a> in April 2023 that make it difficult for those without current state identification to vote.</p>
<p><a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/politics/2023/04/03/bill-aims-to-purge-texas-voters-if-they-skip-elections">Texas</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ga-state-wire-georgia-election-2020-voter-registration-business-a916e90db938aa60a4eff3d00d391006">Georgia</a>, <a href="https://oklahomawatch.org/2019/04/22/nearly-90000-inactive-oklahomans-removed-from-voter-rolls/">Oklahoma</a> and Idaho are also <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790319853/are-states-purging-or-cleaning-voter-registration-rolls">among the states</a> that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790319853/are-states-purging-or-cleaning-voter-registration-rolls">are deleting some voters</a> from their rolls – if people do not regularly vote, for example.</p>
<p>Arizona has <a href="https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2019/09/12/arizona-has-closed-hundreds-polling-places-2013-voting-rights-act-">closed multiple polling sites</a>, making it more difficult for some people to vote. </p>
<p>Twenty-five states, meanwhile, including Hawaii and Delaware, have passed laws over the last few years that <a href="https://theconversation.com/some-states-are-making-it-harder-to-vote-some-are-making-it-easier-but-its-too-soon-to-say-if-this-will-affect-voter-turnout-in-2022-176102">make it easier to vote</a>. One of these measures automatically registers people to vote when they turn 18. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/25/voting-rights-act-voter-map-registration-id-racism-supreme-court-georgia">more examples</a>. The bottom line is, voters have fewer protections when it becomes harder to vote, and American democracy is not as democratic as it could be. </p>
<h2>The big picture</h2>
<p>Voting is not the only form of <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/152/1/52/115008/Power-to-Pursue-Happiness">recognition and participation</a> in a democracy. People can be respected at work, paid what they are worth and treated with dignity. Community members can be treated fairly by police, school officials and other authorities, given an equal opportunity for justice and education to improve their lives. </p>
<p>People <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/civic-virtue-and-why-it-matters#:%7E:text=Civic%20virtue%20describes%20the%20character,of%20its%20values%20and%20principles">can also contribute</a> to the social and economic well-being of a democracy in ways other than voting, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-bucket-list-for-involved-citizens-76-things-you-can-do-to-boost-civic-engagement/">doing everything</a> from planting a tree in a public park to attending a political rally. </p>
<p>But the overall expansion of voting rights and a historical understanding of “We the People” shows that everyone belongs in a democratic society, regardless of wealth, achievement or other differences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The meaning of the Constitution’s preamble, which begins with the words ‘We the People,’ has evolved over time as voting rights have expanded.Joseph Jones, Assistant Professor of Media Ethics and Law at Reed College of Media, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1463672020-09-22T12:23:35Z2020-09-22T12:23:35ZThe case of Biden versus Trump – or how a judge could decide the presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358860/original/file-20200918-18-u9x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C12%2C8098%2C5415&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will judges decide who wins the presidential election?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/supreme-court-royalty-free-image/1250962188?adppopup=true">Geoff Livingston/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020. Given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/timing-signatures-and-huge-demand-make-mail-in-voting-difficult-145084">unprecedented number of mail-in votes this election</a>, Americans may wake up and still not know who won the presidential contest between Republican President Donald J. Trump and Democratic challenger Joseph Biden. </p>
<p>The contest could be so close that a result can’t be known until mail-in ballots in several key states, perhaps <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/09/05/election-2020-battleground-states-heres-how-theyll-count-mail-in-ballots/#3aa677e45bd9">Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Florida</a>, can be fully counted. </p>
<p>It’s conceivable that either candidate <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-trump-refuses-to-accept-defeat-in-november-the-republic-will-survive-intact-as-it-has-5-out-of-6-times-in-the-past-144843">will refuse to accept the result</a>, whether before or after the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots. That could lead to several lawsuits to stop the counting, to keep counting or to force a recount.</p>
<p>Amid what will likely be a flood of charges, countercharges and a lot of heated rhetoric from campaigns and supporters, there are prescribed legal processes that will play out in the event of election challenges. Here is how that will likely work.</p>
<h2>Where challenges begin – and often end</h2>
<p>With only a few exceptions, states run elections. By virtue of <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-4/#:%7E:text=The%20Times%2C%20Places%20and%20Manner,the%20Places%20of%20chusing%20Senators.">Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution</a>, state law governs almost every facet of the electoral process, including most aspects of voter eligibility, the location and hours of polling places, candidate access to the ballot and the members of the state’s Electoral College.</p>
<p>Consequently, electoral challenges must begin – and often will end – in <a href="https://www.acslaw.org/analysis/reports/partisan-justice/">state courts</a>, which will apply that state’s laws. </p>
<p>A candidate who wants to challenge the result in any particular state must first identify what provision of state law the election did not satisfy. In a closely contested national election, where the results in some states are in doubt and may be for many days, this will likely result in several cases being filed simultaneously in several states, and by both major party candidates.</p>
<p>Congress has also provided that each state must have a mechanism for resolving any disputes that arise and that <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/5">the state’s determination “shall be conclusive.”</a> </p>
<p>In most cases, this means that state law, as interpreted and applied by state courts, will determine which candidate wins that state’s electoral votes. </p>
<p>Ordinarily, a decision by a state’s highest court about how to apply a state law cannot be appealed to a federal court. In such a case, the final decision in an election challenge rests with the state’s supreme court.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photos of George W. Bush and Al Gore" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358861/original/file-20200918-18-b92znw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush, left, and Al Gore, right, ended with a Supreme Court decision.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-al-gore-makes-a-point-during-an-appearance-news-photo/150227924?adppopup=true">Chris Hondros/Getty</a></span>
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<h2>How to get to federal court</h2>
<p>As seen in the 2000 case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">Bush v. Gore</a>, however, there are times when a federal court can hear an election-related case. </p>
<p>For a contested election case to be taken up by a federal court, there must be an allegation that federal constitutional rights, such as <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiv">14th Amendment</a> claims to equal protection or due process of law, have been violated. </p>
<p>Similarly, if a person alleges that their right to vote was abridged because of their race or color, that case would be heard in a federal court under the provisions of the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=100">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>, which is based on the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xv">15th Amendment</a>.</p>
<p>Bush v. Gore was the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-bush-v-gore-anniversary">culmination of numerous lawsuits triggered by the close vote in Florida</a>. After both campaigns filed lawsuits in various state courts, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/09/us/contesting-vote-florida-supreme-court-s-decision-hand-recounts-ballots.html">Florida Supreme Court decided to extend</a> the hand-counting of votes until Nov. 26, 2000, eight days after the state’s statutory deadline for certifying the election results to Congress. The Bush campaign challenged that decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html">In a 5-4 opinion</a>, the Supreme Court ruled that the mandated recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the equal protection clause. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court reasoned that the failure of Florida courts to establish a uniform standard for determining legal from illegal votes in a recount created the possibility of different standards being used by different counties. The court concluded that this was a violation of <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xiv/clauses/701#:%7E:text=No%20State%20shall%20make%20or,equal%20protection%20of%20the%20laws.">14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection of the law</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Several Orlando Sentinel newspapers with headlines 'Oh, So Close,' 'It's Bush,' 'Is it Bush?' and 'Contested.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358737/original/file-20200917-24-1flng7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Orlando Sentinel struggled to report the close results in a contested presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Nightmare%20Campaign%20Scenarios/ad3af412a178440c83007bc8fe459e44?Query=George%20Bush%20Al%20Gore&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=56&currentItemNo=29">AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The people’s will’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/please-dona8217t-cite-this-case-the-precedential-value-of-bush-v-gore">Although the facts of Bush v. Gore were unique and messy</a>, as the court itself noted, it is not difficult to foresee one or even several similar challenges arising in the 2020 election. And where the lawsuits involved in Bush v. Gore all originated in Florida, this time the chaos may reach across several states.</p>
<p>Indeed, many experts foresee the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/2020-election-laws.html">possibility of lawsuits</a> in several key states this November. Depending upon the nature of the claim made by the party bringing the lawsuit, many – if not most – of these cases will originate in state courts, and at pretty much the same time. </p>
<p>But it is also quite likely, as happened in the 2000 election, that some – though not all – of the decisions in these cases will be appealed to the Supreme Court because one party could claim the decision violated the Constitution.</p>
<p>This sets up a situation where the outcome of the election may turn on several court decisions, some of them involving state courts. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>And that could lead to a political problem.</p>
<p>In the 2000 election, the Supreme Court’s decision <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/supreme-court-elections/605899/">effectively settled the election</a>, but only because both parties and the people chose to accept the decision – or more precisely, chose to accept the court’s authority to make the decision. </p>
<p>Whether the public would accept an electoral result determined by a state supreme court, or some combination of state court and federal court decisions, seems <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/bush-gore-florida-recount-oral-history/614404/">much more doubtful</a>. Moreover, in some states, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Nonpartisan_election_of_judges#States_with_varied_methods_of_selection_for_trial_court_judges">supreme court judges are elected</a>. A subset of those are partisan elections, <a href="http://www.judicialselection.us/judicial_selection/">where judicial candidates run under a party affiliation</a>, raising the prospect that some of these decisions will appear to be politically motivated. </p>
<p>Indeed, 20 years after Bush v. Gore, <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2018/0831/Neutral-no-more-Can-the-Supreme-Court-survive-an-era-of-extreme-partisanship">in an era of</a> hyperpartisanship, it does not seem obvious that the public would – or even should – accept the Supreme Court’s legitimacy as a neutral adjudicator. </p>
<p>The recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg highlights a simple fact: The Supreme Court is itself a critical issue of intense partisan conflict in the 2020 election. </p>
<p>If Ginsburg’s seat is not filled before the election – and, as a constitutional scholar, I believe there are compelling reasons it should not be – then an eight-justice court could split 4-4 in the imaginary case of Biden v. Trump. Such a decision could look to citizens like party politics dressed in black robes rather than an exercise in constitutional reason.</p>
<p>Bush v. Gore triggered a national debate not only about what the Constitution means, but also about the health and well-being of the American polity. As I have written elsewhere, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=baO0xsuNI-kC&pg=PA402&lpg=PA402&dq=%22political+democracies+do+not+choose+their+leaders+by+judicial+fiat.+They+elect+them,+usually+by+political+majorities.%22&source=bl&ots=4mF-EqEKH8&sig=ACfU3U0_z6qOyhx3UwBbqwKfeaTkUmXMgw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3162kifPrAhXlQ98KHSpXAFgQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22political%20democracies%20do%20not%20choose%20their%20leaders%20by%20judicial%20fiat.%20They%20elect%20them%2C%20usually%20by%20political%20majorities.%22&f=false">“Political democracies do not choose their leaders by judicial fiat. They elect them, usually by political majorities.” </a></p>
<p>And as Supreme Court Justice <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZD3.html">Stephen Breyer notes, “the people’s will is what elections are about.”</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John E. Finn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amid what will likely be a flood of charges, countercharges and a lot of heated rhetoric, there are prescribed legal processes that will play out in the event of election challenges.John E. Finn, Professor Emeritus of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1445312020-08-26T12:23:24Z2020-08-26T12:23:24ZThe right to vote is not in the Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354702/original/file-20200825-22-16e40vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5455%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters in Nashville, Tennessee, faced long lines in March 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXElection2020TennesseePrimary/c380e9918f264d63814aec1c8220650c/photo">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re looking for the right to vote, you won’t find it in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>Two of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-is-back-in-session-with-new-controversial-cases-that-stand-to-change-many-americans-lives-heres-what-to-expect-190819">most important cases</a> at the Supreme Court this year address voting rights, and both legal controversies focus on the right to vote. But rather than denials of the right to cast a ballot, they address the more subtle forms of manipulation grounded in how votes are counted. Underlying the public discussion of these election law controversies, and many others, is a misunderstanding about the Constitution: the assumption that the right to vote is clearly protected.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/moore-v-harper-2/">Moore v. Harper</a> questions the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/justices-will-hear-case-that-tests-power-of-state-legislatures-to-set-rules-for-federal-elections/">constitutionality</a> of attempts to rein in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-independent-state-legislature-doctrine-could-reverse-200-years-of-progress-and-take-power-away-from-the-people-186282">partisan gerrymandering</a>, manipulation of the geographic boundaries of electoral districts to advantage the party controlling the map. <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/merrill-v-milligan-2">Merrill v. Milligan</a> deals with <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-allows-states-to-use-unlawfully-gerrymandered-congressional-maps-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-182407">racial gerrymandering</a>, which changes electoral boundaries to <a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/three-takeaways-merrill-v-milligan-oral-arguments/">advantage one race over another</a>.</p>
<p>The Bill of Rights recognizes the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">core rights of citizens in a democracy</a>, including freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. It then recognizes several insurance policies against an abusive government that would attempt to limit these liberties: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment">weapons</a>; the privacy of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/third_amendment">houses</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment">personal information</a>; <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment">protections</a> against <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment">false criminal prosecution</a> or <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/seventh_amendment">repressive civil trials</a>; and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/eighth_amendment">limits on excessive punishments</a> by the government.</p>
<p>But the framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget – they intentionally left it out. To put it most simply, the founders didn’t trust ordinary citizens to endorse the rights of others. </p>
<p>They were creating a radical experiment in self-government paired with the protection of individual rights that are often resented by the majority. As a result, they did not lay out an inherent right to vote because they feared rule by the masses would mean the destruction of – not better protection for – all the other rights the Constitution and Bill of Rights uphold. Instead, they highlighted other core rights over the vote, creating a tension that remains today.</p>
<h2>Relying on the elite to protect minority rights</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Madison of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Madison(cropped)(c).jpg">White House Historical Association/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the rights the founders enumerated protect small groups from the power of the majority – for instance, those who would say or publish unpopular statements, or practice unpopular religions, or hold more property than others. James Madison, a principal architect of the U.S. Constitution and the drafter of the Bill of Rights, was an intellectual and landowner who saw the two as strongly linked. </p>
<p>At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Madison expressed the prevailing view that “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_807.asp">the freeholders of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty</a>,” meaning only people who owned land debt-free, without mortgages, would be able to vote. The Constitution left voting rules to individual states, which had long-standing laws limiting the vote to those freeholders.</p>
<p>In the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, Madison trumpeted a benefit of the new system: the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed63.asp">total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity</a>.” Even as the nation shifted toward broader inclusion in politics, Madison maintained his view that rights were fragile and ordinary people untrustworthy. In his 70s, he opposed the expansion of the franchise to nonlanded citizens when it was considered at Virginia’s Constitutional Convention in 1829, emphasizing that “<a href="https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-02-02-02-1924">the great danger</a> is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the Minority.” </p>
<p>The founders believed that freedoms and rights would require the protection of an educated elite group of citizens, against an intolerant majority. They understood that protected rights and mass voting could be contradictory.</p>
<p>Scholarship in political science backs up many of the founders’ assessments. One of the field’s clear findings is that elites support the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/on-the-conceptualization-and-measurement-of-political-tolerance/579D03FF1A6041C6DB3DD6CB1FBC98E1">protection of minority rights</a> far <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/193786?seq=1">more than ordinary citizens</a> do. Research has also shown that ordinary Americans are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08913819808443510">remarkably ignorant</a> of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300072754/what-americans-know-about-politics-and-why-it-matters">public policies and politicians</a>, lacking even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/15/public-ignorance-about-the-constitution/">basic political knowledge</a>. </p>
<h2>Is there a right to vote?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of Andrew Jackson" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_jackson_head.jpg">Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What Americans think of as the right to vote doesn’t reside in the Constitution, but results from broad shifts in American public beliefs during the early 1800s. The new states that entered the union after the original 13 – beginning with Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee – <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/evolution-of-suffrage-institutions-in-the-new-world/F7D4A2F6B807F84514340D1F2F084194">did not limit voting to property owners</a>. Many of the new state constitutions also explicitly recognized voting rights.</p>
<p>As the nation grew, the idea of universal white male suffrage – championed by the <a href="https://www.kqed.org/pop/62290/what-we-can-learn-about-trump-from-his-favorite-president-andrew-jackson">commoner-President</a> Andrew Jackson – became an article of popular faith, if not a constitutional right.</p>
<p>After the Civil War, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv">15th Amendment</a>, ratified in 1870, guaranteed that the right to vote would not be denied on account of race: If some white people could vote, so could similarly qualified nonwhite people. But that still didn’t recognize a right to vote – only the right of equal treatment. Similarly, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxix">19th Amendment</a>, now more than 100 years old, banned voting discrimination on the basis of sex, but did not recognize an inherent right to vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4741%2C3129&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man stands at an outdoor voting booth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4741%2C3129&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A voter casts a ballot at a mobile voting station in California in May 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USElection2020HouseCaliforniaSpecialElection/aa6802a99b304ff5a07d78a24f4571b8/photo">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Debates about voting rights</h2>
<p>Today, the country remains engaged in a long-running debate about what counts as <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/28/the-missing-right-a-constitutional-right-to-vote/">voter suppression</a> versus what are <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/husted-v-philip-randolph-institute/">legitimate limits or regulations</a> on voting – like requiring voters to provide identification, barring felons from voting or <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/husted-v-philip-randolph-institute/">removing infrequent voters from the rolls</a>.</p>
<p>These disputes often invoke an incorrect assumption – that voting is a constitutional right protected from the nation’s birth. The national debate over representation and rights is the product of a long-run movement toward mass voting paired with the long-standing fear of its results.</p>
<p>The nation has evolved from being led by an elitist set of beliefs toward a much more universal and inclusive set of assumptions. But the founders’ fears are still coming true: Levels of support for the rights of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/attitudes-toward-democratic-rights-and-institutions/pg_2020-02-27_global-democracy_01-8/">opposing parties</a> or <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/attitudes-toward-democratic-rights-and-institutions/pg_2020-02-27_global-democracy_01-5/">people of other religions</a> are strikingly weak in the U.S. as well as around the world. Many Americans support <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/01/30/survey-tepid-support-free-speech-among-students">their own rights</a> to free speech but want to <a href="https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter">suppress</a> the <a href="https://www.zogbyanalytics.com/news/951-the-zogby-poll-a-plurality-of-voters-support-cancel-culture-pluralities-of-republicans-and-very-conservative-voters-also-support-cancel-culture">speech of those</a> with whom <a href="https://www.zogbyanalytics.com/news/951-the-zogby-poll-a-plurality-of-voters-support-cancel-culture-pluralities-of-republicans-and-very-conservative-voters-also-support-cancel-culture">they disagree</a>. Americans may have come to believe in a universal vote, but that value does not come from the Constitution, which saw a different path to the protection of rights.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published Aug. 26, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget. They intentionally left it out.Morgan Marietta, Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423272020-08-11T12:10:01Z2020-08-11T12:10:01ZAfrican Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351663/original/file-20200806-18-1phy7tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C16%2C2609%2C1781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters at the Richmond, Virginia monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee on June 18, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-against-police-violence-and-racism-continue-to-news-photo/1221109212?adppopup=true">Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are <a href="https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/csa-monument-mapping-project.html">coming down</a> by the dozens.</p>
<p>In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee Circle, home to a 130-year-old monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. </p>
<p>It’s now a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/style/statue-richmond-lee.html">new community space</a> where graffiti, music and projected images turn the statue of Lee from a monument to white supremacy into a backdrop proclaiming that <a href="http://www.blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t a new phenomenon. I’m a historian of celebrations and protests after the Civil War. And in my <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/157750/register-kentucky-historical-society-vol-115-no-1-now-available">research</a>, I have found that long before Confederate monuments occupied city squares, African Americans used those same public spaces to celebrate their history. </p>
<p>But those African American memorial cultures have often been overshadowed by Confederate monuments that dominate public space and set in stone a white supremacist story of the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351665/original/file-20200806-20-1qr4rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sketch of the ‘Colored National Convention’ in Tennessee, 1876.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sketch-of-the-colored-national-convention-in-tennessee-1876-news-photo/657153622?adppopup=true">From the New York Public Library/Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Black celebrations</h2>
<p>In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/protesters-denounce-abraham-lincoln-statue-in-dc-urge-removal-of-emancipation-memorial/2020/06/25/02646910-b704-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html">less power and money</a> than whites did to erect statues to celebrate their past. </p>
<p>Instead, they challenged white dominance of public space using <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/emancipation-day">holidays</a>, <a href="https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/13704/barkleybrown_negotiatingandtransforming.pdf;jsessionid=DD208F1EE358CB9A7B81FAD9BB7A0D42?sequence=1">parades</a>, <a href="https://coloredconventions.org/about-conventions/">conventions</a>, mass meetings and other events. Black people used public celebrations such as <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/historical-legacy-juneteenth">Juneteenth</a> to tell a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0JWdKmh64XgC&printsec=frontcover">positive story</a> about their history, debate and set political goals for the community, applaud the role of Black soldiers and workers, and create a legacy and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/history-and-memory-in-african-american-culture-9780195083972?q=fabre&lang=en&cc=us">cultural identity</a> for Black men, women and children. </p>
<p>These community celebrations helped guide Black protests and organizing after the Civil War and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/06/19/heres-what-juneteenth-looks-like-in-2020-photos/#2becddaf4199">continue to inspire activists today</a>. </p>
<p>Here are just a few of the ways African Americans challenged white dominance in public spaces:</p>
<p>• On July 4, 1866, Black people <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Defining_Moments/e8M8fnMcwyUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=kathleen+clark+%22liberty+which+no+white+man+ever+yet+presumed+to+take+with+Virginia%E2%80%99s+great+work+of+art%22&pg=PA52&printsec=frontcover">gathered</a> in Richmond’s Capitol Square and decorated the statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason with garlands and flags – a radical act that a reporter from the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84024738/">Richmond Dispatch</a> fumed was “a liberty which no white man ever yet presumed to take with Virginia’s great work of art.” By claiming the Founding Fathers as their own, African Americans protested against their exclusion from public space and citizenship. </p>
<p>• In 1867 Black men and women publicly assembled at a convention in Lexington, Kentucky, where political leader William F. Butler <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6NC-Yu-AHzgC&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false">stated</a>, “First we ha[d] the cartridge box, now we want the ballot box, and soon we will get the jury box. I don’t mean with our fists, but by standing up and demanding our rights.” Butler argued that Black men fought to maintain the Union, “but we were left without means of protecting ourselves….We need and must have the ballot box for that purpose.” </p>
<p>• A Baltimore procession in May 1870 celebrated the ratification of the <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/15th-amendment">Fifteenth Amendment</a>, which guaranteed Black men the right to vote. The event had more than 12,000 participants and 20,000 spectators. Newspapers called the procession <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/dtroy/project/newspapers/american/">“vast and magnificent in its appointments, gorgeous in its decorations, and noble in its purposes.”</a> Participants carried banners reading, “Give us equal rights and we will protect ourselves,” and “Equity and justice goes hand in hand.” </p>
<p>These and other African American celebrations asserted their right to public spaces where previously enslaved people might have needed <a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/slave-codes">passes</a> or were supposed to be invisible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351661/original/file-20200806-22-u0zlie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The central part of this image, called ‘The Fifteenth Amendment,’ depicts the grand parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr22a.html#obj11">Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monuments and power</h2>
<p>For both Black and white residents, the actions they took to commemorate their cultures demonstrated the importance of residential and commercial spaces, such as city parks, neighborhoods and shopping districts, and especially official civic spaces such as city halls or courthouses. </p>
<p>White organizations raised hundreds of statues in public spaces, especially in the South, during the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy">height of Confederate memorializing</a> in the Jim Crow and civil rights eras.</p>
<p>White supremacist groups such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/16/the-whole-point-of-confederate-monuments-is-to-celebrate-white-supremacy/">United Daughters of the Confederacy</a> erected these Confederate monuments to, in their words, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009583001">“correct history”</a> by celebrating the <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lost_cause_the#start_entry">Lost Cause</a>, the idea that slavery was a benevolent institution and the Confederate cause was just. </p>
<p>These monuments represented a way to remind African Americans that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/06/how-charlottesvilles-confederate-statues-helped-decimate-the-citys-historically-successful-black-communities.html">public spaces, public commemoration and public advancement</a> were not for them. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/29/why-bree-newsome-took-down-the-confederate-flag-in-s-c-i-refuse-to-be-ruled-by-fear/">And while protests</a> that Confederate flags and monuments do not belong in public spaces have grown stronger since <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/878828088/5-years-after-charleston-church-massacre-what-have-we-learned">2015</a>, resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected. </p>
<p>In Charleston, South Carolina, Black citizens in the 1880s and 1890s mocked and defaced the original monument to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-C-Calhoun">John C. Calhoun</a>, a South Carolina congressman and U.S. vice president, who defended slavery as a “positive good.” </p>
<p>Teacher and civil rights activist <a href="https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w68p67zx">Mamie Garvin Fields</a> remembered that as a child it seemed as if Calhoun’s statue was “looking you in the face and telling you … I am back to see you stay in your place.” She recalled bringing something to <a href="https://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/places/the-south-carolina-monument-that-symbolizes-clashing-memories-of-slavery/">“scratch up the coat, break the watch chain, try to knock off the nose”</a> – perhaps leading to its replacement in 1896 with a much taller monument. </p>
<p>In 1923 the United Daughters of the Confederacy urged Congress to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/opinion/sunday/confederate-monuments-mammy.html">fund a monument</a> “to the faithful slave mammies of the South” in Washington, D.C. The National Association of Colored Women mobilized several Black activist organizations in letter-writing campaigns, petitions and editorials and crushed the plan. The monument was never built.</p>
<h2>Turning away</h2>
<p>White residents had the power to ignore Black residents’ commemorative activities. </p>
<p>Rather than watch the festivities or listen to Black speakers, they chose to leave town for the day, stay inside or express disgust among themselves. White people in Richmond celebrated the Fourth of July in the countryside, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hGE3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=partly+to+enjoy+the+days+relaxation+from+business+and+partly+to+avoid+the+spectacle+which+they+could+not+have+avoided+witnessing+had+they+remained+at+home.&source=bl&ots=gvRTZzZnH9&sig=ACfU3U15UP1QzeTLZvGcgxKj44Rq61ZsFw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSwe_s2bHqAhUFXc0KHcrDCvMQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=partly%20to%20enjoy%20the%20days%20relaxation%20from%20business%20and%20partly%20to%20avoid%20the%20spectacle%20which%20they%20could%20not%20have%20avoided%20witnessing%20had%20they%20remained%20at%20home.&f=false">noted the Richmond Dispatch newspaper</a>, “partly to enjoy the day’s relaxation from business and partly to avoid the spectacle which they could not have avoided witnessing had they remained at home.” </p>
<p>The Baltimore American newspaper noted that those who were too “thin-skinned” to see Black residents celebrating the Fifteenth Amendment shut their doors, “presenting the appearance that ‘nobody was in.’” White residents <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/dtroy/project/newspapers/american/">“refused to witness the procession, declaring they could not gaze upon such a humiliating scene.”</a> </p>
<h2>Remaking public space</h2>
<p>In 2017, white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 11-12 for the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/14/543471538/charlottesville-rally-aimed-to-defend-a-confederate-statue-it-may-have-doomed-ot">Unite the Right rally</a>, ostensibly to protect a monument of Robert E. Lee. </p>
<p>It was a battle over what vision of America would prevail in public space in the 21st century. </p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p>
<p>Chanting “White lives matter” and “Jews will not replace us,” the white supremacists violently attacked counterprotesters. </p>
<p>Today, the tables are turned. Anti-racism protesters are transforming public space by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/richmond-jefferson-davis-statue-pulled-down-trnd/index.html">tearing down</a> Confederate monuments or demanding their removal. Years of activism combined with these same types of activities – mourning, celebration of Black pasts, public demands for the future, politics in the streets – have led to the removal of many Confederate monuments, despite the violence and fury of white supremacists. </p>
<p>Activists are telling a <a href="https://www.vmfa.museum/about/rumors-of-war/">new story</a> of African American history out of the relics of a white supremacist past, just as they did in public celebrations in the 19th century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Protests of Confederate flags and monuments have grown since 2015, but resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1333012020-03-16T12:18:50Z2020-03-16T12:18:50ZClosing polling places is the 21st century’s version of a poll tax<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319986/original/file-20200311-116240-1slu37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=103%2C8%2C2892%2C2205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Californians wait in line to vote on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/CA-Election-2020-California-Voting/37d4681bbfce4cac95f3d2e09edbe765/14/0">AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Delays and long lines at polling places during recent presidential primary elections – such as voters in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/long-voting-lines-in-texas-spotlight-concerns-about-access-to-the-polls/2020/03/04/e729486a-5e2e-11ea-b014-4fafa866bb81_story.html">Texas</a> experienced – represent the latest version of decades-long policies that have sought to reduce the political power of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting">African Americans</a> in the U.S.</p>
<p>Following the Civil War and the extension of the vote to African Americans, state governments worked to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-everyone-should-know-about-reconstruction-150-years-after-the-15th-amendments-ratification-122117">block</a> black people, as well as poor whites, from voting. One way they tried to accomplish this goal was through poll taxes – an amount of money each voter had to pay before being allowed to vote. </p>
<p>This practice was abolished by the passage of the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xxiv">24th Amendment</a> in 1964. Further protections for nonwhite voters came with the Voting Rights Act, which closely followed the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/selma-montgomery-march">Selma to Montgomery civil rights protest marches</a> 55 years ago, in March 1965.</p>
<p>But in recent years, new barriers have gone up that, we believe, constitute a new type of poll tax on working people and minority voters. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yi48Sl4AAAAJ">We</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xoubpW0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">are</a> scholars of the American civil rights movement, including the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1660274">Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s voting rights efforts</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike past poll taxes, the modern poll tax isn’t paid in money, but in time – how long it takes a person to get to a polling place, and, once there, how long it takes for them to actually cast their ballot.</p>
<h2>Securing the right to vote</h2>
<p>Almost immediately after the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv">15th Amendment</a> gave African Americans the right to vote in 1870, state governments in the South passed a series of laws seeking to limit <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/race-and-voting-in-the-segregated-south">freed blacks’ voting power</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, white supremacist organizations like the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/02/the-long-history-of-black-voter-suppression-in-american-politics/">Ku Klux Klan</a> used violence to intimidate African Americans from casting ballots.</p>
<p>This situation remained largely unchallenged for almost a century, until the 1960s, when the years of protest by the civil rights movement bore fruit in the abolition of poll taxes and federal protection of citizens’ voting rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319988/original/file-20200311-116291-175fbbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Lyndon Johnson signs the 24th Amendment, Feb. 4, 1964, abolishing poll taxes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Signing_of_the_Constitutional_Amendment_on_the_Poll_Tax.jpg">Cecil W. Stoughton/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Creating a new poll tax</h2>
<p>Since the 1960s, there have been efforts by state and local officials to limit these hard-won victories. </p>
<p>The most recent chapter in this battle is the 2013 Supreme Court decision in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">Shelby County v. Holder</a>, which lifted restrictions on states that have historically blocked African Americans from voting, so state governments no longer need to seek federal approval before taking actions that might disproportionately harm black citizens’ <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/">right to vote</a>. </p>
<p>Since the Shelby County decision, local election boards and state governments have closed over <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/report-more-than-1600-polling-places-have-closed-since-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act/">1,600 polling places</a>. That is approximately 8% of total voting locations within jurisdictions affected by the Shelby decision. </p>
<p>The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan independent study group started in 1957, found that states claimed polling-place closures were intended to save money, centralize voting operations, and complying with Americans with Disabilities Act – but really the goal was <a href="https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/Minority_Voting_Access_2018.pdf">reducing voter turnout</a>, particularly among minority voters who were historically disenfranchised. Using publicly available data, federal lawsuits brought against states and counties the report documents clear patterns of discrimination.</p>
<p>These closures, often done with little notice or public accountability, have occurred across communities of varying racial and <a href="https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/">demographic characteristics</a>. What unites these places are <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/klj/vol104/iss4/5/">the costs they impose</a> on voting – from longer wait times to transportation obstacles – experienced disproportionately by voters of color, older voters, rural voters, voters with disabilities and poor working <a href="https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/">people in general</a>.</p>
<p>In the 2016 election, for instance, scholars at UCLA found that voters in black neighborhoods waited, on average, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.00024">29% longer to vote</a> than voters in predominantly white communities. The study found, “Even within the same county, voters in a hypothetical all-black precinct would wait 15 percent longer than voters in an all-white precinct.” </p>
<p>The study found voters in majority black precincts were far more likely to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.00024">wait longer than half an hour</a> to cast a ballot than voters in majority white precincts. A study of the 2012 election found that the voters who waited in long lines paid, collectively, over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2014.0292">half a billion dollars</a> in lost wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320259/original/file-20200312-111232-1h18azh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voters in Houston, Texas, wait in line to vote on Super Tuesday 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voters-line-up-at-a-polling-station-to-cast-their-ballots-news-photo/1204959570">Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Considering time</h2>
<p>We believe that polling place closures represent a modern-day version of the poll tax. </p>
<p>In our view, access to polling places is a key element of citizens’ <a href="https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914b24dadd7b0493475f116">right to vote</a>. People need fair and equitable access to places to vote – and determining what that means should include time and travel costs imposed on voters. This would expand traditional understandings of access to polling places beyond narrow legal opinions and take into account the full range of racial and class barriers to being able to participate in U.S. democracy. </p>
<p>Everybody’s time is valuable. But wait times have different effects depending upon a person’s socioeconomic status. </p>
<p><a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/tndl85&div=7&g_sent=1&casa_token=b6sHA4AGfu8AAAAA:lRaEeXP_zforinl7vSd2bTvYfwkXqH_K479KZkRxBDv2h_RFdUaRleSa3PJ2K8C_dskseFpF7Q&collection=journals">Working people calculate daily</a> how much time, if any, they can afford to be away from their hourly wage job. Interminable waits at polling places may not fit in the schedule with a second or third job. Work supervisors may not excuse a late arrival or an absence. A working person may feel pressure to leave a polling place before casting a ballot, just to get to work on time and keep the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/486932-sanders-calls-long-lines-at-michigan-polling-stations-an-outrage">money coming in</a>.</p>
<p>Importantly, the Supreme Court’s Shelby County ruling did not invalidate all of the Voting Rights Act. Rather, it threw out the method by which the federal government could determine <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/section-4-voting-rights-act">which areas of the country had policies</a> that resulted in widespread voter disenfranchisement. </p>
<p>Congress could enact new legislation detailing a new method of making that determination, which would then <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/2/14/17619202/voting-rights-fight-explained-key-sections-rights-act">restore federal oversight</a> to states that create barriers to voting. </p>
<p>However because of our federal system where states have direct oversight of elections many of these decisions ultimately take place at the local and state level. As a result, election officials need to work in transparent ways with diverse communities to ensure that changes to voting locations do not disproportionately limit minority access. In addition, states could also ensure equal access to voting by creating, or expanding, early voting periods, and making it possible <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx">to vote by mail</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The modern poll tax isn’t paid in money, but in time – how long it takes a person to get to a polling place, and, once there, how long it takes for them to actually cast their ballot.Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.