Voting Rights Act

This month, the Supreme Court will consider whether or not Congress' 2006 extension of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. This story presents a great opportunity to engage your students in current events and voting rights history.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act states that federal authorities need to approve any changes to the voting laws of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, and parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota. This provision was included to further combat Jim Crow laws in the places that needed it the most, and was only to last five years. Congress has chosen to extend this provision numerous times, most recently voting in 2006 to extend it for 25 years. In the case before the Court, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, the city of Austin argues that it is no longer appropriate to assume that these areas discriminate.

So why challenge this section of the law after 40 years? Many point to the election of Barack Obama as proof that this type of racism no longer exists. Others, such as Justice Kennedy say, "racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history" and that a minority president does not mean we should relax our laws.

What do your students think? Does the "Age of Obama" mean that our nation has moved beyond racial discrimination? Or did Congress act appropriately when they extended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?

You can use the online game, Seize the Vote! or the Center's Constitutional Timeline and Interactive Constitution to have your students learn more about voting rights history to better inform their discussion.

Women's perceptions of voting kept them away from the polls

On this, the last day of Women’s History Month, it is fitting to reflect on a note-worthy suvey of women and the voting franchise. Though women won the right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, they did not exercise their newly-granted power in an equal proportion to men until sixty years later. 59.4% of voting-age women participated in the 1980 presidential election, in comparison to 59.1% of their male counterparts.

Of interest to today’s students, perhaps, are the reasons that women did not go to the polls in greater numbers. The results of a 1924 University of Chicago poll of non-voting women give insight into the attitudes of women during the period.

Students might not be surprised to learn that the number one reason given by women who opted not to cast a ballot was “general indifference to politics or to the particular election that year.” However, a more startling rationale for staying away from the voting booth was given by 11.4% of women: a “disbelief in woman’s voting.” Ethnic background and age were predictors of this response, with a tendency for the anti-suffragist belief to be shared by German, Irish and Italian women of older years. Teachers can ask students to examine why these groups would have shown a tendency to hold this view.

“Objections of husband” were cited to a lesser extent than the women’s own objections. Teachers can prompt students to consider why women might have been the greatest impediment to their own voter turnout.

Let’s celebrate the fact that in 2009 women continue to vote in equal numbers and percentages to men!