190 PART Two • ThE PoliTiCs oF AmERiCAn DEmoCRACy
Franchise
The right to vote.
Registration
The entry of a person’s
name onto the list of
registered voters for
elections. To register, a
person must meet certain
legal requirements of age,
citizenship, and residency.The voting-age population in 2012 was 240.9 million people. The number of eligible vot-
ers, however, was only 221.9 million. If we calculated 2010 voter turnout based on the
larger voting-age population, turnout would appear to be 53.6 percent, not 58.7 per-
cent—a substantial error.legal Restrictions on Voting
Legal restrictions on voter registration have existed since the founding of our nation. Most
groups in the United States have been concerned with the suffrage (voting) issue at one
time or another. In colonial times, only white males who owned property with a certain
minimum value were eligible to vote, leaving more Americans ineligible to take part in
elections than were eligible.Property Requirements. Many government functions concern property rights and the
distribution of income and wealth, and some of the founders of our nation believed it was
appropriate that only people who had an interest in property should vote on these issues.
The writers of the Constitution allowed the states to decide who should vote. Thus,
women were allowed to vote in Wyoming in 1870 but not in the entire nation until the
Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. By about 1850, most white adult males in
almost all the states could vote without any property qualification.Further Extensions of the Franchise. Extension of the franchise to black males
occurred with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. This enfranchisement
was short lived, however, as the “redemption” of the South by white supremacists had
rolled back those gains by the end of the century. As discussed in Chapter 5, it was not
until the 1960s that African Americans, both male and female, were able to participate
in the electoral process in all states. Women received full national voting rights with the
Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The most recent extension of the franchise occurred
when the voting age was reduced from twenty-one to eighteen by the Twenty-sixth
Amendment in 1971. One result of lowering the voting age was to depress voter turnout
for several decades beginning in 1972, as you can see in Figure 8–1 earlier in this section.
Young people are less likely to vote than older citizens.Current Eligibility and Registration Requirements. Voting generally requires
registration, and to register, a person must meet the following voter qualifications, or
legal requirements: (1) citizenship, (2) age (eighteen or older), and (3) residency. Since
1972, states cannot impose residency requirements of more than thirty days.
Each state has different laws for voting and registration. In 1993, Congress passed
the “motor voter” bill, which requires that states provide voter- registration materials when
people receive or renew driv er’s licenses, that all states allow voters to register by mail,
and that voter-registration forms be made available at a wider variety of public places and
agencies. In 2004, Arizona challenged the motor voter law with an initiative that placed
greater requirements on citizens seeking to register than those in the national legislation.
In 2013, however, the Supreme Court overruled the Arizona law.^13
In general, a person must register well in advance of an election, although voters in
the District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North
Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are allowed to register up to, or even on, Election Day.
North Dakota has no voter registration at all. Some argue that registration requirements
are responsible for much of the non participation in our political process.- Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, U.S. (2013).
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