Voting Rights

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Voting Rights

• Electoral College
• a body of electors chosen by the voters who
  formally elect the president and vice president
• Vs. Popular Vote
• 1. the vote for a U.S. presidential candidate
  made by the qualified voters, as opposed to that
  made by the electoral college. Compare electoral
  vote

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http//dotsub.com/view/0c504c81-cebc-4370-bf94-b20
fce57c38f
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http//www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral
-college/electors.htmlselection
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Suffrage in Colonial Times
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Suffrage in Colonial America

• Benjamin Franklin believed that voting was a
  natural right. Today a man owns a jackass worth
  fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote but
  before the next election the jackass diesNow
  gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right
  of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?

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Continued

• Requirements to vote
• 1. White male over the age of 21
• 2. Must be a landowner
• 3. Some made citizenship of the colony or England
  a requirement.

• Barred Individuals
• 1. Servants
• 2.Paupers
• 3.Women (some New England towns allowed widows)
• 4. Non-White (African-Americans and Indians)
• 5. Religion
• MA must be member of Congregational Church
• Catholics could not vote in 5 states
• Jews could not vote in 4 states

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Reconstruction (186577)

• 1.The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in 1870,
  prevented states and the federal government from
  restricting suffrage based on "race, color, or
  previous condition of servitude i.e., slavery.
• 2. The Amendment was a Republican effort to
  ensure the rights of African Americans and create
  a voting base for the party in the South.
• 3. A combination of enduring racism, a severe
  economic depression, Northern exhaustion with
  Reconstruction, a desire for national unity, and
  a campaign of organized violence against African
  Americans and their white allies overturned
  Reconstruction.

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Disenfranchisement

• Denying someone the
• Right to vote

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19th Amendment

• Section 1 The right of citizens of the United
  States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
  the United States or by any State on account of
  sex.
• Section 2 Congress shall have power to enforce
  this article by appropriate legislation.

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Money Maker or Discrimination?

• Florida is the first state to
• impose poll the tax in 1889.
• Poll tax varies on the state (Miss. Charges 2)
• 24th Amendment ends the poll tax
• (fraud, violence, White Primary)

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.

• 2. Poll Tax

• 2012 Disenfranchisement

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http//kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_f
iles/test.html
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Popular vote Versus the electoral college
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Five Most Controversial Election in AMERICAN
GOVERNMENT

• The election in 1800 went to the House of
  Representatives after a voting mix-up left Thomas
  Jefferson and his vice presidential running mate
  Aaron Burr with the same number of electoral
  votes.
• In 1800, it created a tied election in which both
  candidates were entitled to claim the presidency.
  Congress fixed this in 1804 with the 12th
  Amendment, which required that the president and
  vice president be voted on separately.

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Second - 1824

• Despite losing the popular and electoral votes,
  John Quincy Adams became president. The election
  was known to some as the Corrupt Bargain after
  Adams named Henry Clay, the speaker of the House
  of Representativesand the man who convinced
  Congress to elect Adamsto serve as secretary of
  state.

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Third-1876

• Before the 2000 election, there was the 1876
  election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel
  Tilden, governors of Ohio and New York,
  respectively.
• When the votes had been counted, Tilden had won
  the popular vote and had a 184-165 lead in the
  electoral vote. The 20 disputed electoral votes
  were ultimately awarded to Hayes after a bitter
  legal and political battle, giving him the
  victory over the Compromise of 1877.

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Fourth -1888

• Grover Cleveland, who was running for a second
  term against Benjamin Harrison, had 93,000 more
  popular votes after the election in 1888. Though
  he lost in the Electoral College 233 to 168,
  according to Harpers Weekly.

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2000- Bush Vs. Gore- Fifth

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vSprsUaX5j78

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Review Questions

• 1.What is the difference between the electoral
  college and the popular vote? How do the two
  processes work together?
• 2. During the suffrage period what were three
  requirements for voters? What individuals (3)
  were barred from voting during the suffrage
  period?
• 3. What was the importance of the 19th Amendment?
• 4. Why do you think the practice of poll tax was
  discriminatory?