Editing Suffrage (section)

===United States===
{{Main|Voting rights in the United States}}
The [[Constitution of the United States]] did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to decide this status. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only [[White American|white]] male adult property owners to vote (about 6% of the population).<ref>{{cite web |title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties – The Right of Suffrage |url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |website=Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom |publisher=National Archives |access-date=21 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |archive-date=6 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Kenneth |last1=Janda |first2=Jeffrey M. |last2=Berry |first3=Jerry |last3=Goldman |title=The challenge of democracy : government in America |date=2008 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=9780618990948 |page=[https://archive.org/details/challengeofdemoc0009jand/page/207 207] |edition=9. ed., update |url=https://archive.org/details/challengeofdemoc0009jand |url-access=registration |postscript=none}}; {{cite book |last1=Murrin |first1=John M. |last2=Johnson |first2=Paul E. |last3=McPherson |first3=James M. |last4=Fahs |first4=Alice |last5=Gerstle |first5=Gary |title=Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People |date=2012 |publisher=Wadsworth, Cengage Learning |isbn=9780495904991 |page=296 |edition=6th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGSQOiy6uZUC&pg=PT337}}</ref> By 1856 property ownership requirements were eliminated in all states, giving suffrage to most white men. However, tax-paying requirements remained in five states until 1860 and in two states until the 20th century.<ref name="Engerman 2005">{{cite web |first1=Stanley L. |last1=Engerman |first2=Kenneth L. |last2=Sokoloff |title=The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World |date=February 2005 |url=http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/sokoloff-050406.pdf |pages=16, 35 |quote=By 1840, only three states retained a property qualification, North Carolina (for some state-wide offices only), Rhode Island, and Virginia. In 1856 North Carolina was the last state to end the practice. Tax-paying qualifications were also gone in all but a few states by the Civil War, but they survived into the 20th century in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. |access-date=10 March 2016 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111211244/http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/sokoloff-050406.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=U.S. Voting Rights |url=http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html |publisher=Infoplease |access-date=21 April 2015}}</ref>

Since the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], five amendments to the Constitution have limited the ways in which the right to vote may be restricted in American elections, though none have added a general right to vote.<ref group=nb>The [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]] (1868) altered the way each state is represented in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]]. It counted all residents for apportionment including former slaves, overriding the [[three-fifths compromise]] of the original Constitution; it also reduced a state's apportionment if it wrongfully denied the right to vote to males over age 21. However, this sanction was not enforced in practice.</ref>
* [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th Amendment]] (1870): "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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
* [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|19th Amendment]] (1920): "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."
* [[Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution|23rd Amendment]] (1961): provides that residents of the [[District of Columbia]] can vote for the President and Vice President.
* [[Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|24th Amendment]] (1964): "The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax." This did not change the rules for state elections.
* [[Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution|26th Amendment]] (1971): "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."

The use of [[grandfather clause]]s to allow European-Americans to vote while excluding African-Americans from voting was ruled unconstitutional in the 1915 decision ''[[Guinn v. United States]]''. States continued to use [[literacy test]]s and [[poll tax]]es, which also disenfranchised poor white citizens. Racial equality in voting was substantially secured after the passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], a major victory in the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. State elections, it was not until the 1966 decision ''[[Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections]]'' that the U.S. Supreme Court declared state poll taxes violated the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the Fourteenth Amendment.<ref name="Scher 2015">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=POzqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PR9 |title=The Politics of Disenfranchisement: Why is it So Hard to Vote in America? |last=Scher |first=Richard K. |date=2015 |page=viii–ix |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9781317455363}}</ref><ref name="NHLTS 2009">{{Cite web |year=2009 |title=Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting Rights |url=https://www.nps.gov/nhl/learn/themes/CivilRights_VotingRights.pdf |publisher=A National Historic Landmarks Theme Study}}</ref>