CIVICS 101 The Fight for Voting Rights in America - lwvwilliamsburg.org - Williamsburg League of Women Voters.

July 21, 2020

“WE THE PEOPLE”

CIVICS 101                                                            `

The Fight for Voting Rights in America
- Past, present & future

                                 lwvwilliamsburg.org

                                     Mary Ann Moxon & Sudie Watkins
                           LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS—WILLIAMSBURG AREA

League - now 100
years strong
• More than 700
  local and state
  Leagues in all 50
                        `
  states - as well as
  in DC, the Virgin
  Islands and Hong
  Kong
• 14 local Leagues
  in Virginia
• Men are members
  too - since 1974

DATES TO REMEMBER – in Virginia

Tuesday, October 13, 2020
*Deadline to register to vote/update address
*Same-day registration to be implemented 2022

Friday, October 23, 2020 by 5 p.m.
Deadline to request an absentee ballot to be MAILED TO YOU

Saturday, October 31, 2020 by 5 p.m.
Deadline to request absentee ballot IN PERSON

TUESDAY, November 3, 2020
GENERAL ELECTION DAY: Valid ID with name & address needed
Photo ID NO LONGER NEEDED

What will we cover today?

The Fight for Voting Rights in America
Past, present & future
                                                         `
•   What the original 1787 Constitution included about
    voting
•   How amendments transformed voting rights through
    the years
•   Answer your questions, submit in Chat Box
     Again. . . THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!

Benjamin Franklin understood
the power of voting

             “They who have no voice
             nor vote in electing of
             representatives do not
             enjoy liberty; but are
             rather enslaved to those
             who have votes.” (1774)

MYTH & FACTS

Myth:
• Americans were GIVEN their voting rights.

Facts:
• Americans have FOUGHT for their voting rights since
  1787.
• Voting is NOT a privilege that states may observe at
  their convenience.
• Founding Fathers were heavily influenced by John
  Adams who believed that neither men without property
  nor women should vote.

Does our
democracy
come with
an
expiration
date?

National Constitution Center
  Independence Mall, 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia PA

                 constitutioncenter.org

Check out the INTERACTIVE CONSTITUTION on their
website and get on their email list. Their “interactive
Constitution” offers both conservative AND liberal
interpretations.

U.S. Constitutional Convention
Philadelphia; May 25 - September 17, 1787
•   55 delegates from 12 states (none from Rhode Island)
•   Less than half arrived by two weeks after the start
•   New Hampshire delegates arrived 2 months late
•   Only 35 delegates attended on a typical day
•   21 were military officers of the American Revolution
•   34 were lawyers
•   Benjamin Franklin oldest at 81
•   4 were in their 20s
•   29 held college degrees
•   About 1/3 owned slaves

Thomas Jefferson certainly influenced the
ideas included in the Constitution, but he did
NOT help write it. He was not there.

Did you know that? . . .
•   The U.S. Constitution is the oldest and shortest (7762
    words) constitution in operation in the world.
•   James Madison got credit for drafting the document, but 4
    months of compromise hammered it out and it did NOT
    have universal support from the delegates.
•   Only 39 delegates, representing 12 states, remained
    through the four months & signed the Constitution.
•   5 of the states were “slave states” when slaves comprised
    about 35% of the population of those states, so this
    convention did NOT end slavery.
•   38 states allowed non-citizens to vote at some point-until
    1996

Rule of Secrecy; no leaks

Williamsburg well-represented at Convention
    4 out of 7 Virginia’s Founding Fathers (in blue)
•    James Madison: spoke more than 150 times during the Convention; rarely
     absent; the preeminent figure at the convention
•    George Mason: one of five most frequent speakers at the Convention; did not
     sign the Constitution
•    James McClurg: born near Hampton; W&M grad; attended Convention when
     Patrick Henry declined; supported life tenure for President; left the convention
     in early August and did not sign the Constitution
•    Edmund Randolph: born in Williamsburg; attended W&M; Williamsburg Mayor;
     Virginia Governor; did not sign Constitution
•    George Washington
•    George Wythe: Williamsburg resident; became mayor; speaker of House of
     Delegates; first dean of W&M Law School; played an insignificant role at
     Convention, left early and did not sign the Constitution
•    John Blair: born in Williamsburg; W&M grad; attended the Constitutional
     Convention religiously but never spoke; buried in graveyard of Bruton Parish
     Church

Ratification!

• Convention ended (September 17, 1787)
• Delaware - first to ratify (December 7, 1787)
• New Hampshire - 9th state (June 21, 1788)
• 4 days later, Virginia ratified it (June 25, 1788)
• Electoral College convenes (February 4, 1789)
• Constitution takes effect & 1st U.S. Congress
  convenes (March 4, 1789)
• Rhode Island finally ratified (May 29, 1790)

Who could vote in first U.S. presidential
election (1788-1789)?

• Only educated white male property owners (or with
  enough wealth for taxation) could vote in more than ¾
  of the states; about 32 percent of Americans

• Freed black men could vote in 4 Northern states

• Unmarried women who owned property could vote in
  New Jersey-until 1807

• About 12% of the population voted: the 1790 Census
  counted a total population of 3 million with a free
  population of 2.4 million and 600,000 slaves

Property Requirements

• 7 in 10 Americans legally barred from voting
  at the outset of American history
• In 1790, the first census year, more than ¾ of
  the states had some form of property
  ownership & payment of taxes required to
  vote.
• Land ownership was still a requisite for voting
  in most states until 1850

10 Amendments!

• 12 Amendments proposed (September 1789)

• Amendments 3 through 12 (Bill of Rights)
  ratified (December 15, 1791)

• Article 2 became 27th Amendment (1992)

• Article 1 that addresses the number of seats in
  the House (technically still pending!)

Words “vote,” “voted” &“voting”
• Appear 39 times throughout the Constitution and
  Amendments
                                                             `
• Phrase “right to Vote" not specifically addressed in the
  original Constitution until Amendments 12, 14, 15, 17,
  19, 20, 25, and 26

• The "right to vote" mentioned five times, all in
  Amendments

• Election laws are the responsibility of each State.

Where are Voting Rights in the Constitution?

•   Article 1, Section 2 – 1788; portion changed by 14th Amendment
•   Article 1, Section 3 – 1788; portion changed by 17th Amendment
•   Article 1, Section 4 – 1788; elections run by states!!!
•   12th Amendment – 1804 – election of president & VP
•   14th Amendment – 1868 – citizenship rights
•   15th Amendment – 1870 – voting not denied by race
•   17th Amendment – 1913 – senators elected by popular vote
•   19th Amendment – 1920 – women suffrage
•   23rd Amendment – 1961 – presidential vote for DC residents
•   24th Amendment – 1964 - abolition of poll taxes
•   26th Amendment – 1971 – right to vote at age 18

Election Administration by the States

• States have wide latitude in running elections.

• In the 1700s and much of the 1800s, each state set its own date
  for elections.

• By 1830, religion and property requirements had been
  abolished in almost all state constitutions, although suffrage was
  still only guaranteed to white males over the age of 21.

• Yet Congress can and does step in & PRE-EMPT state statutes

13th Amendment
Loophole
-slavery by another name

“Except as a punishment for crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted . . ”
• Nine states — Alabama, Texas, Louisiana,
  Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee
  and South Carolina — used a convict leasing
  system after the Civil War
• Allowed states to deny the right to vote to felons

Disenfranchised in Florida?
    Mea Culpa!
•    1868 to 2018--anyone convicted of a felony in Florida barred from voting
     for life

•    Possible felonies: “behaving impudently,” loitering, theft of agricultural
     products, trespassing; 533 different infractions defined as felonies now

•    1878? 95% of Florida convicts were Black

•    2016? 4.1 million disenfranchised (excluding murders & sexual abuse)

•    Current Florida Governor has reduced restorations by 99 percent—to 300
     people in last 8 years.

•    August 18, 2020: Appeals court hearing on restoring voting rights to 1.4
     million

VOTER REGISTRATION

• When the Constitution was ratified, there was
  no such thing as voter registration.
• Voter registration as we know it is not
  common in the rest of the world.
• Every state requires voter registration except
  North Dakota.
• Varies by state
• 22 states now permit same-day registration;
     Virginia in 2022

Was JIM CROW a real person?

• Jim Crow was a mocking term for a black man.
• Jim Crow laws, from 1865 to 1968, were named after a black
  minstrel show character and meant to marginalize blacks and take
  away their voting rights.
• These repressive local and state laws (mostly in Southern states)
  detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could live,
  travel, work and for how much compensation.
• Set aside segregated waiting rooms in bus and train stations,
  water fountains, restrooms, building entrances, elevators,
  cemeteries, even amusement-park cashier windows.

Literacy Tests from 1890s to 1960s

Poll Taxes until 1965

17th Amendment: The Senate (1913)
    The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
    Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six
    years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

• Prior to the 17th Amendment in 1913, U.S. Senators were chosen
  by state legislatures as they had been since the original
  Constitution? 17th Amendment gave that power directly to voters
  in each state.
• Whether that was included in the Constitution to protect state
  governments is a matter of some dispute. But it definitely ended
  the control of sometimes corrupt state legislatures.

23rd Amendment
1961

• The Seat of Government Clause of the 1787 Constitution provided
  for the establishment of the District and granted Congress
  exclusive power to govern the District.
• More than 700,000 residents live in DC, which is more than the
  populations of Wyoming and Vermont, yet its residents still lack
  voting members in the U.S. House and Senate.
• Statehood for DC is an ongoing movement. In June 2020 the
  House voted along party lines to approve DC as the 51st state,
  known as “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” in order to keep
  the DC name.

Voter Suppression up to 1965

PHOTO IDs
Smile!
•   Voter ID has earned praise and sparked fury in a way that election
    regulations rarely do.
•   Before 2006, no state required voters to show photo identification
    at the polls. Today, 17 states do.
•   2012: Virginia passed rules requiring IDs (with or without a photo);
    less than one year later, the legislature required photo IDs
•   2020: Virginia changed the voting ID law to include certain non-
    photo IDs
•   More on this issue in September webinar!

Baker V. Carr (1962)
Reynolds V. Simms (1964)

26th Amendment (1971)

“The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18
years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or any state on account of
age.”
•   Eisenhower in his 1954 State of the Union address: “For years
    our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril,
    been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in
    the political process that produces this fateful summons.”
•    In 1943, Georgia had already lowered its voting age in state and
     local elections from 21 to 18.

17-Year-Olds CAN VOTE?
Trivia of the day

•   17 states (Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana,
    Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New
    Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia,
    Vermont, and West Virginia) permit 17-year-olds to vote in
    primary elections and caucuses if they will be 18 by election
    day.
•   Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada allow 17-year-olds to
    participate in all presidential caucuses, but may not vote in
    primary elections for other offices.

Voting age around the world
more trivia for Jeopardy

•   18 is the most common voting age, with a small minority of
    countries differing from this rule with a national minimum age of
    17: East Timor, Greece, Indonesia, North Korea, South
    Sudan, and Sudan.
•   The minimum age is 16 in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba,
    Ecuador, Malta, Nicaragua and the Isle of Man, Jersey and
    Guernsey (three self-governing British Crown Dependencies.
•   The highest minimum voting age is 21 in several nations.
•   The only known maximum voting age is in the Vatican where
    electing a new Pope is restricted to Cardinals under the age of
    80. Pope Paul VI set this rule in 1970.

“Second hardest state to vote”
not an award to instill pride
• A 2018 Northern Illinois University study “analyzed the impact of 33
  different variables dealing with registration and voting laws” then ranked
  states based on “the time and effort it took to vote in each presidential
  election year from 1996 through 2016.”

• In this study, Virginia was named the second hardest in which to vote

• To avoid perceived “voter fraud,” past Virginia General Assembly majorities
  opted to pass election laws that had the result (intended or not) of
  suppressing turnout by minorities, low-income residents and younger
  voters

• Many of these barriers to voting remedied in General Assembly 2020
  session

CHANGES effective July 1, 2020
•   a permanent absentee vote-by-mail program

•   no-excuse absentee voting (by mail/in person) – 45 days prior to
    election day (September 19, 2020)

•   automatic voter registration at DMV

•   establishing Election Day as a state holiday

•   expanding the voting ID law to include certain non-photo IDs

•   voter registration applications available at high schools and colleges

•   providing voting materials in multiple languages for non English-
    speaking citizens

DATES TO REMEMBER

Tuesday, October 13, 2020
*Deadline to register to vote/update address
* Same-day registration to be implemented 10/1/22

Friday, October 23, 2020 by 5 p.m.
Deadline to request an absentee ballot to be MAILED TO YOU

Saturday, October 31, 2020 by 5 p.m.
Deadline to request absentee ballot IN PERSON

TUESDAY, November 3, 2020
GENERAL ELECTION DAY: Remember NO photo ID needed

Virginia Department of Elections
www.elections.virginia.gov

- to register/update your address
- to apply to absentee vote
- to access your Virginia voting record
(on Citizen Portal)

VOTE in 2020!

CIVICS 101
   NEXT MONTH: August 18, 2020

Women Suffrage in America
    Standing on Their Shoulders