WEBVTT - How Has the U.S. Prevented Citizens from Voting? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.440 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.720 brain Stuff, Lauren Vogebaum. Here in the United States, the 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.480 right of adult citizens to vote and elect public officials 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.160 is one of our most hallowed principles, or at least 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.560 that's what's taught in middle school civics classes. In reality, though, 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:26.200 there's another tradition that goes back even further in American history, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.880 finding ways to keep people from voting, whether through our 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.440 cane laws, tricks and hoaxes that prevent eligible voters from 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.879 going to the polls, or even open intimidation and violence. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.360 In some ways, voter suppression, as such efforts are called, 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.160 goes back to the earliest days of the country. Only 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.760 six percent of the U s population was eligible to 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.040 vote in the first presidential election in see. That's because 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:57.000 most states only allowed white male landowners to vote. In 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.200 the eighteen hundreds, the property requirements started to fade aid, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.080 and over the next century, people of color and women 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.679 legally gained the right to vote, but local and state 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.440 governments came up with a variety of ways to limit 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.680 who actually got to participate in elections, and efforts to 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.600 restrict voting continue even today. According to the Brennan Center 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.400 for Justice, Aid, new York based think tank and civil 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:25.120 rights advocacy organization. Since alone, twenty five states have passed 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.320 new laws making it more difficult to vote, such as 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.280 by reducing the number of polling places and the hours 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.320 that they're open. One old method of preventing people for 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.080 voting is to require them to pay a tax for 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.880 that right, and to make it just high enough to 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.440 be prohibitive. In the early twentieth century, most of the 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.480 former states of the Confederacy imposed such poll taxes. The 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.680 amounts weren't that high by contemporary standards. Of Virginia charged 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.280 a dollar fifty per year, which is about eleven dollars 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.240 in today's money, while Mississippi charged two dollars, about fifteen 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.880 dollars today. Even so, the taxes had to be paid 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.520 in cash, which amounted to a hardship for sharecroppers, miners, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.200 and small farmers who generally bought food, clothing, and other 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.760 necessities with credit and never had more than a few 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:17.520 spare dollars in their possession. Additionally, in Virginia and other states, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.040 the taxes were cumulative, which meant that a prospective voter 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.120 had to fork over the cash for several years in 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.480 a row before being eligible to register. In nineteen sixty four, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.600 the ratification of the twenty fourth Amendment to the U. 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.280 S Constitution prohibited poll taxes, but it wasn't until two 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.080 years later that the last four remaining state laws were 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.680 struck down in federal court. Although outright poll taxes are 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.639 now illegal, the issue of needing to spend money to 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.080 vote intersects with modern tactics of forcing citizens to travel 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.840 further to access their polling place or requiring voter i D. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.760 At least thirty six states now have laws requesting or 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.520 requiring voters to show some form of identification, such as 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:05.280 a driver's license or other government issued I D. Advocates 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.160 of such laws promote them as necessary to prevent fraud 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.359 at the polls, but critics charge that they are intended 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.520 to keep young people and minorities, whom studies show are 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.920 less likely to have such I das from voting. In 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.680 some states, obtaining I D can cost as much as 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.919 sixty dollars, and even in states where the cards are free, 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.240 licensing offices are often in places that are difficult for 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.880 people without cars to reach. In addition to the cost, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.840 the types of acceptable identification can be confusing too, or 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.840 can favor voters of one party over another. In Texas, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.120 for example, a handgun permit is considered acceptable identification, but 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.040 a University I D Card is not, and it makes 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.240 a difference. A September twenty fourteen report by the U S. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.360 Government Accountability Office found that black voter turnout in Kansas 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.560 dropped by three point seven percentage points more than white 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.080 turnout after a voter ID law was passed, and that 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.440 the number of eighteen year old voters dropped by seven 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.600 point one percent more than it did for voters ages 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:12.240 forty four to fifty three. In the post reconstruction American South, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.200 officials who wanted to keep black people from voting came 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.400 up with another cleverly cruel trick. They imposed so called 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.000 literacy tests, which ostensibly were intended to make sure that 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.800 only voters who could read and write and thus were 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:31.080 adequately informed, could cast ballots. But since formerly enslaved people 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.960 seldom had been allowed by their owners to learn to read, 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:39.239 the literacy tests effectively disenfranchised many of them. The first 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:43.039 such test was created in two in South Carolina, where 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.239 voters were required to fill out a ballot for each office, 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.240 such as governor or senator, and then put the ballot 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.039 in the correct box. The boxes were continuously shuffled to 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.520 prevent those who had learned to read from helping those 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.760 who hadn't yet acquired the skill. As more black people 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.920 came literate, though, officials came up with even more bizarre tests, 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.200 such as in Louisiana, confusingly worded instructions that the prospective 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:12.600 voter copy out a sentence using alternating cursive print and capitalization. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.760 Some Southern states continued to use such tests up until 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.000 nineteen sixty five, when the Voting Rights Act made them legal. 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.400 Southern states came up with other tricks to make it 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.360 difficult to register to vote. They required frequent re registration, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.640 as well as street addresses with names and numbers, which 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.919 many people living rurally didn't have. In the North and West, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.280 in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, officials 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.240 used similar tactics to keep immigrants from participating in the 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.360 electoral process too. In California and New Jersey, for example, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:51.040 immigrant citizens were required to present their original naturalization papers 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.280 at polling places. Elsewhere, authorities closed polling places and registration 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.640 offices early so that industrial workers who commonly worked ten 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.840 hours shifts in those days wouldn't be able to make 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.400 it in time. And in New York, officials prevented Jewish 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.120 people from registering by designating Saturdays and Yam Kapoor, during 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:14.680 which Jewish religious observances take place, as registration days. An 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.320 ongoing method of suppression involves pruning names from the voter rolls. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.479 Before the year two thousand presidential election, state officials in 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.120 Republican controlled Florida hired a private firm to go through 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.119 the states voter registration roles and delete names of people 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.279 who were deceased, registered in multiple places, convicted felons, or 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:38.080 declared mentally incompetent by court proceedings. But as a subsequent 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.120 investigation by the U. S Commission on Civil Rights detailed, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.960 the hired checkers made numerous mistakes and deleted many voters 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:49.480 who are fully eligible. The commission report doesn't specify how 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.599 many voters were deprived of their rights unfairly, but the 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.320 deleted voters disproportionately were African Americans who tend to vote Democrat. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.239 In the Miami area, sixty five percent of those deleted 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.040 were black people, who represented just twenty of the population. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.800 White people made up only sixteen point six percent of 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.920 the purge list, even though they amounted to seventy seven 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:17.320 point six percent of the public, and in a report 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.280 by the American Civil Liberties Union found that Georgia had 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.280 removed nearly two hundred thousand names from the voting lists 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:28.360 after concluding wrongfully that those people had moved. But the 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.520 last tactic that we're covering today intersects with a number 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.720 of other issues in equity and justice, the practice of 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.960 banning felons from voting. As many as five point eight 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.320 million Americans of voting age can't cast a ballot because 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.640 they live in states that bar anyone with a criminal 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.720 record from voting even after they've served their sentences. About 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.880 two point two million of those disenfranchised voters are black, 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.000 and black people are convicted and sent to prison at 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.760 twice the rate of the overall US population. In just 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.280 two states allowed prisoners to vote. Most of the rest 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.880 allow them to vote after their sentence, parole time and 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.200 or probation, or serve. In another eleven states, convicted felons 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.480 automatically lose their right to vote and may only get 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.040 it back under certain circumstances, after an appeals process or 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.800 after any outstanding court fines and fees are paid, which 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.840 can be a huge hurdle. However, this is one vote 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:28.120 suppressing restriction that's slowly giving way. Over the last two decades, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.160 about two dozen states have changed their laws and enabled 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:39.960 more people with criminal convictions to regain their rights. Today's 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.360 episode is based on the article ten ways the US 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.080 has kept citizens from voting on how stuffworks dot Com, 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.360 written by Patrick J. Kaiger and Katherine Whitborn. Brain Stuff 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.880 is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.679 dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.480 podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:08.400 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.