Section 2: Voter Qualifications

Objectives: * Identify the universal requirements for voting in the United States. * Explain the other requirements that States have used or still use as voting qualifications.

* Are you qualified to vote? * Probably not – at least not yet. * Do you know why? * In this section, we will discuss who is qualified to vote in our country. Universal Requirements * Every state requires that any person who wants to vote must be able to satisfy qualifications based on three factors.

1) Citizenship 2) Residence 3) Age * The States have some leeway in shaping details of the first two of these factors. * They have almost no discretion with regard to the third one.

Citizenship > Aliens – foreign born residents who have not become citizens – are denied the right to vote in the US > Nothing says in the Constitution that Aliens cannot vote. > Any State can allow them to vote if they want to. > Minnesota is the only State that draws any distinction between native-born and naturalized citizens.

> Minnesota requires that you have been an American citizen for 3 months before you can vote. Residence > In order to vote in this country today, one must be a legal resident of the State in which he or she wishes to cast a ballot. > In most States a person must have lived in that State for at least a certain period of time before they can cast a vote.

> The States adopted residence requirements for two reasons. + to keep a political machine from importing enough outsiders to affect the outcome of an election. + to ensure that every voter has at least some time in which to become familiar with the candidates and issues in an election.

> Most States today require a voter to live in the State for at least 30 days before they can vote. > Nearly every State does prohibit transients – persons living in the State for only a short time from gaining a legal residence there. > Traveling sales agents, college students, and military people cannot vote in a State where he or she has a temporary physical residence.

Age > The 26 th Amendment added to the Constitution in 1971 set the minimum age for voting at 18 years of age. > Any State can choose to set the age lower if they want to. > Until the 26 th Amendment, the general age for voting was at 21. > Georgia was the first State to allow 18 year olds the right to vote.

Other Qualifications * 49 States _ all except North Dakota – require that voters be registered to vote * Registration – a procedure of voter identification intended to prevent fraudulent voting. * It gives election officials a list of those persons who are qualified to vote. * Typically, a voter must give his/her name, address, age, place of birth, length of residence, and other similar facts.

* Purging – is a process that is done every two or four years to remove the names of those voters who are no longer eligible to vote. * Poll Books – those books with a large number of persons who no longer meet voting requirements. * They are also the list of all registered voters in a precinct. * Critics complain that registration limits who votes in an election.

* Most European countries put all names of those people allowed to vote on the voter registry and thus no one has to register to vote. * The US is the only democracy that requires people to register to vote. * The US does this to defend against fraud. * In 1993, Congress passed the “Motor Voter Law”, became effective in 1995.

* With this law, a voter can register to vote when they … > renew their driver’s license. > provide voter registration by mail > make registration forms available at the local offices of State employment, welfare, and social services agencies. * Every 4 years, a questionnaire is mailed to all registered voters so that poll books can be purged for death and change of residence.

* No State has a suffrage qualification based on voter literacy- a person’s ability to read or write. * At one time this practice was very common * Some literacy requirements called for potential voters to prove they had the ability to read and write. * Many literacy requirements were designed to keep African-Americans from voting

Tax payments * Property ownership, proved by the payment of property taxes, was once very common suffrage qualification. * Many States had what was called a Poll Tax – this was a condition for voting. * Today, this tax does not exist * 24 TH Amendment outlawed, ratified in 1964, outlawed the Poll Tax once and for all.

* Every State does deny the right to vote to certain people. * People in Mental Institutions cannot vote. * Legally incompetent people cannot vote. * Convicted criminals cannot vote in any State. * Some States do not allow anyone dishonorably discharged from military service to vote.