The vote is the most powerful tool that the American public wields. The vote empowers American citizens to decide who will speak in Congress, who will lead as the commander in chief, and who will serve in the local judiciary. As such, the vote is the most accessible way to engage in the political arena. Exercising the right to vote has proven even more vital as the country has become increasingly polarized. With political parties diverging more and more each day, the vote is an invaluable way to engage in our ever-changing democracy. Why, then, has voter engagement been low historically, and what can be done to get more eligible (voting-age and registered) voters to the polls?
Voter Turnout Today
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) publishes a compilation of officially certified federal election results. These publications include primary, runoff, and general election results for the Senate, the House of Representatives, and, when applicable, the president. According to the FEC, 158,429,631 votes were cast in the 2020 presidential election. However, according to the United States Elections Project, there were 239,924,038 total eligible voters in the United States that year. Elementary math reveals the stark reality that more than 80 million Americans, constituting one-third of the electorate, did not participate in the election at all. Perhaps even worse, the 2020 election was one of the highest-turnout U.S. national elections since 1900. Even at our best, by comparison, voter turnout in the United States trails behind other liberal democracies, ranking 31st out of 49 national elections in 2020—falling between Colombia (62.5 percent voter turnout) and Greece (63.5 percent voter turnout). It begs the question: How did we get here?
History of Voting in America
The history of voting in the United States starts with the birth of the nation. The colonies originally adopted from England the requirement of property ownership to vote, bestowing the right to vote only upon white, landowning males. In the new country’s first few national elections, only four to six percent of eligible voters actually cast a ballot. Historians attribute this low voter turnout to primitive forms of transportation, poor dissemination of information, and little party affiliation.
It was not until the 1820s that election participation rose. A more efficient electoral system, improvements in transportation, and advancements in the dissemination of political news all created more active political parties and, in turn, increased civic engagement. The political movement led by Andrew Jackson’s Jacksonian Democrats galvanized the public and brought the masses into the political process. Voter turnout increased from 27 percent in 1824 to 58 percent in 1828. By the 1830s, most states had removed the voting requirement of land ownership, and by 1840, 80 percent of all white males eligible to vote had cast a ballot in that year’s election. Voter turnout remained at these high levels for the rest of the 19th century, with voter turnout among white men averaging 77 percent in the 15 elections from 1840 to 1896.
The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, finally abolished the race and color voting restrictions. In theory, all males could now legally cast a vote. However, the American South was committed to repressing the Black vote and responded to the 15th Amendment by enacting highly restrictive state voting laws. Restrictions included grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and poll taxes, all with the desired outcome of oppressing Black civic engagement. Although the Supreme Court declared Oklahoma’s grandfather clause unconstitutional in Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), Black voters were still largely disenfranchised throughout the South. In response to Guinn, exclusively white primaries rose as the preferred method of restricting the Black vote. These primaries restricted both voting and candidacy in the Democratic party to white males. White primaries effectively crippled the Black vote throughout the South until they were declared unconstitutional in 1944. The prejudicial poll tax would not be outlawed in federal elections until the passage of the 24th Amendment in 1964. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled poll taxes were unconstitutional in any election in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966).
With the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, the right to vote could no longer be restricted on the basis of race, color, or sex. In 1971, the 26th Amendment was ratified to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 in light of the hypocrisy of having teenage soldiers—who could not participate in the political arena—fight in the Vietnam War.
Despite the increased diversity and representation in the U.S. electorate over time, the oppressive policies of past years have had a lasting effect on civic engagement. As an example, by 1892, only 6 percent of voting-age Black Americans were registered to vote. Nationally, between 1888 and 1924, voting rates fell from 64 percent to 19 percent in the South and 86 percent to 57 percent in the North and West. Despite the right to vote being codified in the Constitution, the right existed almost only on paper for much of the American public.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Significant strides toward voter equality did not start to occur until the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The VRA abolished discriminatory literacy tests and all voting procedures that restricted an individual’s right to vote based on race. Potentially most important, the VRA mandated that states with low voter registration and low voter turnout submit any desired procedural changes to the federal government for approval to ensure that the change would not have a discriminatory effect. These VRA requirements immediately improved southern Black registration rates, with 62 percent of eligible Black voters registering by 1968.
In 1970, the VRA was amended to prohibit requirements of residency longer than 30 days. Congress later expanded the VRA by adding protections for members of language minority groups in 1975 and protections for people with disabilities in 1982. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), eviscerated the central “preclearance” component of the VRA, removing the vital guardrail that had protected voters from discriminatory restrictions.
National Voter Registration Act of 1993
Even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there still was not exponential improvement in civic engagement. Legislators fought for almost two decades to bring more members of the public into the fold, and in 1993, President Bill Clinton finally signed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) into law. The NVRA came to be colloquially known as the “Motor Voter Act.”
The NVRA maintains in its “Findings and purposes” that, above all else, “the right of citizens of the United States to vote is a fundamental right.” It further states that “it is the duty of the Federal, State, and local governments to promote the exercise of that right.” The NVRA’s main purpose was thus to “establish procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office.”
The NVRA’s most impactful provisions require that each state establish a simplified voter registration procedure by (1) implementing simultaneous voter registration and driver’s license renewal applications; (2) adopting national mailing registration forms or alternative state forms that meet federal requirements; (3) providing opportunities to register at designated federal, state, or other non-governmental offices; (4) sending notice to voter applicants of their voter standing; (5) not removing voter’s names from the voter roll unless requested or provided by state law; (6) allowing a private legal right of action to those who are aggrieved by a violation of the act; and (7) providing criminal penalties for those found guilty of any type of voter fraud.
Help America Vote Act
In 2002, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to expand on the NRVA’s groundwork for federal support of voter registration procedures. HAVA was passed in light of widespread problems in election administration revealed by the 2000 presidential election. Section 303(a)(1) of HAVA requires each state implement a “uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list” and establishes standards for when states may remove ineligible or inactive voters. HAVA, unlike NRVA, has not been subject to many constitutional challenges. This could be because Congress’ authority to regulate voter registration has already been established in NVRA case law or because, unlike the NVRA, HAVA included federal funding to support states’ implementation of its requirements.
Despite the aspirations of the Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, and Help America Vote Act, voter turnout and civic engagement in the United States is still low. Acknowledging the fact that voter registration is the initial barrier to voting, what can be done after voters have been registered to get to them the polls?
