Are you a woman ♀?
Are you between the ages of 18-21?
Are you “non-white”?
Let’s start with the 15th Amendment passed in 1870.
Amendment XV
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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This is the amendment that allowed black men the right to vote. While, now when we read it we may assume it includes women, that was not the case then. However, people found other ways to prevent “non-whites” from voting:
“Many devices kept blacks from voting: moving polling places to inaccessible areas, a special poll tax, literacy tests, requiring prospective voters to interpret the state constitution (to the satisfaction of subjective white authorities), firing from their jobs blacks who were caught voting. The worst method was violence, and African Americans by the hundreds were murdered for trying to exercise the franchise.” From Africana: Gateway to the Black World.
Minorities are still disenfranchised, prevented in some states from voting because of felony convictions, or turned away just for being non-white. Just a few weeks ago, the FBI went to the houses of elderly women in Florida and threatend them if they were to vote.
Then came the right for women to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment which passed in 1920
Amendment XIX
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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
However, women are still not guarenteed equal rights as men in the constitution. You can read more about it here, and the push for an Equal Rights Amendment.
In the 1960′s we got the Voting Rights Act.
“June of 1970, Congress extended the 1965 Voting Rights Act (which aimed to extend voting rights to everyone by preventing prerequisites to or qualifications for voting) to include 18-year-olds, by adding three amendments, including a provision that lowered the voting age in federal and state elections. The bill was passed in both the House and Senate.
President Nixon signed the bill despite apprehension that it might be illegal because the Constitution reserved the power to determine who voted in state and local elections for the States. The 26th Amendment In 1971, the 26th Amendment was ratified, giving everyone over the age of 18 the right to vote. The Amendment was passed in large part because of the letter-writing and peaceful protest efforts of a large number of college students and young men and women facing conscription. Ratification was accomplished in four monthsâ€â€the shortest period of time of any Constitutional Amendment in U.S. history.” read more here.
Then in 1971, in large part because of the Vietnam war we got the 26th Amendment.
Amendment XXVI
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
People however can still die for this country without having the right to vote and without being a United States Citizen.
You can learn more about the voting right act and here.
The point of all of this is that we need to get out and vote. It isn’t too late to register (only one more week). How would you feel if the right for women, non-whites, and those from 18-21 weren’t counted? Go vote.