US Government October 28, 2015

Daily Warm-up:  “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service”  Where have you seen this restriction? Do you think it is fair to place that restriction on paying customers?

Daily Objectives:  Students will be able to…  identify the universal requirements for voting in the U.S.  explain the other requirements that States have used or still use as voting qualifications.

Agenda:  1. Daily Warm-up  2. Daily Objective Review  3. Voting Rights Explained Video  4. Voters and Voter Behavior: Voter Qualifications PWPT  5. Chapter 6 Section 2 Assessment pg. 157 #1-6  Homework: 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th, & 6 th Periods-Work on your project!

Voting Rights Explained Video

Universal Requirements  Every State requires that any person who wants to vote must meet the following 3 factors:  Citizenship  Residency  Age

Universal Requirements  Citizenship  Aliens—foreign born residents who have not become citizens— generally cannot vote.  Nothing in the Constitution states that aliens cannot vote and any State could allow them to do so if they chose to.  During different times, about 1/4 the States permitted aliens who applied for naturalization the right to vote.  Today, only two States draw distinctions between native-born and naturalized citizens:  Minnesota requires a person to have been a citizen for at least 3 months prior to voting; Pennsylvania requires at least 1 month of citizenship

Universal Requirements  Residence  You must be a legal resident in the State in which you wish to vote.  States adopted residence requirements for 2 reasons:  to keep a political machine from importing (bribing) enough outsiders to affect the outcome of local elections  to allow new voters at least some time to become familiar with the candidates and issues in an election  Traditionally, residency was achieved after living in the State for a year, days in the country, 30 days in the local precinct.

Universal Requirements  Residence  Today, residency requirements aren’t as long; typically 30 days  Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970  Dunn v. Blumstein 1972  States prohibit transients—people living in the State for only a short time, from gaining a legal residence there  College students, members of the armed services, etc. cannot vote in a State where they have temporary residence  Some States allow college students to vote if they claim the campus as their legal residence

Universal Requirements  Age  The 26 th Amendment extends suffrage to citizens who are at least 18 years of age.  Any State could set the age at less than 18 if it chose to do so  Until 1970, the age requirement for voting was 21  Georgia allowed 18 year olds in 1943; Kentucky 1955; Alaska 1959 (voting age of 19); Hawaii (voting age of 20)  26 th Amendment is largely attributed to “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote”  % of year olds voted; % of year olds voted

Other Qualifications  States have imposed a number of other qualifications over time:  Literacy requirements  Tax payment  Registration (survived)

Other Qualifications  Registration  49 States (all but ND) require voters to register  Registration—procedure of voter identification intended to prevent fraudulent voting  Also helps identify voters’ party preference  Purging—the process of removing names of those who are no longer eligible to vote.  Happens every 2-4 years; often ignored  Poll Books—the official list of qualified voters in each precinct—tend to become clogged with ineligible voters  Some view registration as a bar to voting, especially by the poor and less educated

Other Qualifications  Registration  The U.S. is the only democratic country where people have to decide whether or not they will register to vote  Motor Voter Law 1993 directs each State to:  Allow all eligible citizens to register to vote when they apply/renew a driver’s license  Provide voter registration by mail  Make registration forms available at the local offices of State employment, welfare, and other social service agencies  Each State must mail a questionnaire to registered voters every 4 years to purge poll books  By 2000, 8 million people had registered to vote by the Motor Voter Law

Other Qualifications  Literacy  No State has a suffrage qualification based on literacy—a person’s ability to read/write  In most cases it was used unfairly to prevent certain groups from voting  Connecticut 1855; Massachusetts 1857—limit voting by Irish Catholic immigrants

Other Qualifications  Literacy  Mississippi 1890; southern States followed—limit African American vote  Grandfather clauses—changes to State Constitutions to assist white males in voting who could not pass the literacy tests  Stated that any man, or his male descendants, who had voted in the State before the adoption of the 15 th Amendment could become a legal voter without passing literacy tests or paying taxes  Guinn v. United States 1915

Other Qualifications  Literacy  Other States outside the south also adopted literacy tests  Wyoming 1889; California 1894; Washington 1896; New Hampshire 1902; Arizona 1913; New York 1921; Oregon 1924; Alaska 1949  Congress eliminated literacy as a qualification for suffrage in 1970 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act Amendments  Oregon v. Mitchell 1970

Other Qualifications  Tax Payment  Property ownership (payment of taxes on that property) was a suffrage qualification  Several States also demanded the payment of a poll tax as a condition of voting  Southern States adopted the poll tax after 1889 to discourage African American voting  The 24 th Amendment, ratified in 1964, outlawed the poll tax as a condition of voting  Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections 1966

Other Qualifications  Persons Denied the Vote  None of the 50 States allows people in mental institutions, or others who have been found mentally incompetent the right to vote  Several States prohibit anyone committing a serious crime from gaining or regaining the right to vote  In some States, those who are dishonorably discharged from the military are not allowed to vote