Week of October 31 – Voter Trivia

The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971.

In the beginning of the United States, only white men owning property were allowed to vote.

The Presidential election of November 1920 was the first occasion on which women in ALL states were allowed to exercise their right to vote.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act guaranteed African Americans the right to vote at the time thousands were being disenfranchised across the country.

Technically, Native Americans received the right to vote in 1870 when the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, opening voting up to citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” However, it wasn’t until 1924, with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act-in which Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States-that Native Americans began exercising their right to vote. Like African Americans, Native Americans became the brunt of unfair voting mechanisms, such as poll taxes and literacy tests. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Native American voting rights were strengthened.