Who could vote
✶ 1789 — 2024 · 60 presidential elections · 119 Congresses
Who could vote,
and when.
The franchise was not given once; it was fought over, widened, narrowed and widened again. Scrub through every presidential election and see the map, the result, and the rules that governed it.
* Electoral College winner lost the popular vote (1824 decided by the House)
- Democratic
- Republican
- Whig
- Democratic-Republican
- Federalist
- Other / third party
- Split electors
Participation
Turnout, 1789–2024
Share of the voting-eligible population that cast a ballot for President. Turnout peaked in the late 19th century, collapsed after Southern disenfranchisement and women's suffrage enlarged the eligible pool, and recovered in the 2020s.
Congress
The House, 1857–2025
Democratic (below) and Republican (above) shares of House seats at the start of each Congress. Dots mark Congresses elected in midterm years — the president's party has lost House seats in most of them.
Eras
9 ages
of the franchise.
- 1789–1823
Founding and First Party System
Federalists and Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans competed in a deferential politics in which many states had legislatures choose presidential electors and all senators were chosen by legislatures. The Federalists faded after 1816, leaving one-party 'Era of Good Feelings' rule.
Who could vote
Mostly adult white men who met state property or taxpaying requirements, a share of adult white men that varied widely from state to state. Free Black men could vote in several states (e.g., North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts) but were progressively barred (Maryland 1810, Connecticut 1818). Property-holding women and Black residents voted in New Jersey until an 1807 law restricted the vote to white male citizens. Enslaved people, Native Americans in tribal relations and most women could not vote, and in many states voters had no direct say in choosing presidential electors. - 1824–1859
Jacksonian mass democracy and the Second Party System
Democrats and Whigs built mass parties with conventions, rallies and partisan newspapers; property qualifications fell, popular choice of electors became universal outside South Carolina, and turnout of eligible voters rose to around 80% by 1840. Slavery's expansion broke the Whigs in the 1850s and produced the Republican Party.
Who could vote
Nearly all adult white male citizens, as states replaced property tests with taxpaying or residency requirements; several Midwestern states also let immigrant men who had declared intent to naturalize vote. At the same time free Black men lost the vote in North Carolina (1835) and Pennsylvania (1838) and faced a $250 property test in New York, so by 1860 they voted on equal terms only in most of New England. Women, enslaved people and most Native Americans remained excluded. - 1860–1876
Civil War and Reconstruction
Secession removed Southern states from the 1864 election; afterward the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and the 14th and 15th Amendments remade the Southern electorate, and hundreds of Black men won office. Violence and fraud by 'Redeemer' Democrats steadily reclaimed Southern states, culminating in the disputed 1876 election.
Who could vote
Adult male citizens, now formally regardless of race: the 1867 Reconstruction Acts enfranchised Black men in ten ex-Confederate states before the 15th Amendment (1870) barred racial discrimination nationally. Some former Confederates were temporarily disqualified. Women were still excluded from federal elections, though Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870) territories enfranchised women locally. Native Americans not taxed and not citizens were excluded. - 1877–1899
Redemption and the rise of Jim Crow disenfranchisement
After federal troops withdrew in 1877, Gilded Age elections were intensely competitive nationally, with turnout near 80% outside the South, while Southern Democrats used fraud, violence and, from Mississippi's 1890 constitution on, poll taxes and literacy tests to strip Black men of the vote. The secret ballot spread nationwide.
Who could vote
Formally, adult male citizens; in practice, Black men in the South were increasingly prevented from voting, first by intimidation and ballot-box fraud and after 1890 by poll taxes, literacy and understanding tests and residency rules that also excluded many poor white men. Women gained full suffrage in Wyoming (1890 statehood), Colorado (1893), Utah and Idaho (1896). Chinese immigrants were barred from naturalization and thus the vote by the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). - 1900–1931
Progressive era and the Solid South
Reformers adopted direct primaries, the 17th Amendment's direct election of senators, and women's suffrage, while the one-party South completed disenfranchisement through grandfather clauses and white primaries. National turnout fell from about 74% in 1900 to under 50% in 1920–24 as new voters entered and Southern participation collapsed.
Who could vote
Adult male citizens outside the South, joined by women in a growing number of states (Washington 1910, California 1911, New York 1917) and nationally from 1920 under the 19th Amendment. Most Black Southerners, men and women, were kept from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests and white primaries. Native Americans became citizens in 1924, but several states still barred them. Asian immigrants remained ineligible for naturalization, and states increasingly ended noncitizen voting (the last, Arkansas, in 1926). - 1932–1953
New Deal era
Franklin Roosevelt's coalition of urban workers, ethnic minorities, the white South and, increasingly, Northern Black voters dominated five straight presidential elections. Smith v. Allwright (1944) outlawed the white primary, and wartime and postwar mobilization began to erode Jim Crow restrictions.
Who could vote
Adult citizens 21 and over (18 in Georgia from 1943), subject to state rules. Poll taxes persisted in several Southern states and literacy tests in many states North and South; Black registration in the South remained low despite gains after 1944. Arizona and New Mexico Native Americans won the vote in court in 1948. Chinese (1943), Filipino and Indian (1946) and then all Asian immigrants (1952) became eligible for naturalization. Residents of the District of Columbia could not vote for President. - 1954–1971
Civil Rights era
The civil rights movement and the Supreme Court transformed the electorate: the 23rd, 24th and 26th Amendments, one-person-one-vote decisions, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Harper v. Virginia dismantled the legal architecture of disenfranchisement and malapportionment.
Who could vote
Steadily more adult citizens: Utah Native Americans (1957), D.C. residents for President (from 1964), Southern Black citizens after the Voting Rights Act suspended literacy tests and sent federal examiners (registration in Mississippi rose from about 7% to nearly 60% in four years), poll-tax payers no longer required (federal 1964, state 1966), and 18- to 20-year-olds nationally from 1971. Felony disenfranchisement, durational residency rules and English-only ballots still excluded many. - 1972–2009
Post-reform era
Candidate-centered campaigns, primaries and televised advertising dominated; Congress regulated campaign money (FECA 1971/1974, BCRA 2002) and eased registration (NVRA 1993), and the 2000 Florida recount led to the Help America Vote Act. Turnout of eligible voters hovered between about 52% and 62% in presidential years.
Who could vote
U.S. citizens 18 and older who met state registration and residency rules (durational residency limits capped by Dunn v. Blumstein, 1972), with VRA language assistance from 1975 and accessibility requirements later. The main exclusions were noncitizens, people disenfranchised for felony convictions (rules ranging from no restriction in Maine and Vermont to lifetime bans in some states), and residents of U.S. territories, who cannot vote for President. - 2010–2026
Polarized modern era
Super PACs after Citizens United and SpeechNow, the end of VRA preclearance in Shelby County, Rucho's withdrawal of federal courts from partisan gerrymandering, record mail voting in 2020, the January 6 attack and the 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act define the period; Louisiana v. Callais (2026) narrowed Section 2 redistricting claims.
Who could vote
U.S. citizens 18 and older, with rules increasingly diverging by state: many states adopted strict photo-ID, proof-of-citizenship or list-maintenance rules while others added automatic and same-day registration and universal mail ballots. Felony-disenfranchisement laws were loosened in many states (Florida's 2018 Amendment 4, D.C.'s 2020 restoration for incarcerated residents). Residents of U.S. territories still have no presidential vote, and D.C. has no voting representation in Congress.
The rules
45 turning points
- 1788 Amendment
U.S. Constitution ratified ↗
Article I has House members chosen by 'the People' every two years, with voter qualifications pegged to those for the larger branch of each state legislature; senators are chosen by state legislatures for six-year terms. Article II has each state appoint presidential electors 'in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct', each elector casting two votes. Representation counted three-fifths of enslaved people.
Effect: Left suffrage (property, taxpaying, sex and race requirements) entirely to the states and made the presidency and Senate indirectly elected.
- 1804 Amendment
Twelfth Amendment ↗
Ratified June 15, 1804, after the 1800 Jefferson–Burr tie: electors cast separate ballots for President and Vice President. If no one has a majority, the House chooses among the top three, voting by state delegation; the Senate picks the Vice President from the top two.
Effect: Enabled party tickets; governed the 1824 House contingent election and the 1836 Senate vice-presidential election.
- 1821 Practice
End of property qualifications for white men (1810s–1850s) ↗
State by state, property requirements gave way to taxpaying or simple residence tests for white men: e.g., Maryland (1810), Connecticut (1818), Massachusetts and New York (1821; New York ended its remaining white-male property test in 1826 while keeping a $250 freehold requirement for Black men), Virginia (1851), and North Carolina, which in 1857 dropped the last property test, for state Senate voting. New states admitted after 1820 generally entered without property tests.
Effect: Created near-universal white manhood suffrage by mid-century, even as several states (New Jersey 1807, Connecticut 1818, North Carolina 1835, Pennsylvania 1838) explicitly disenfranchised free Black men.
- 1832 Practice
Popular choice of presidential electors becomes the norm ↗
Legislative appointment of electors, common in the 1790s (nine of fifteen states in 1792), dwindled after 1800; by 1828 only Delaware and South Carolina still used it, and from 1832 South Carolina alone, through 1860. Florida's legislature chose electors in 1868 and Colorado's in 1876; no state has done so since.
Effect: Made the presidential contest a mass popular campaign and spurred national party conventions and statewide winner-take-all slates.
- 1845 Law
Uniform presidential Election Day ↗
Act of January 23, 1845 set the appointment of presidential electors on 'the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November', ending elections spread over a month across states. First used in 1848. Now 3 U.S.C. § 1.
Effect: Created a single national Election Day for choosing electors (states could still choose a later day if they failed to make a choice, until 2022).
- 1868 Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment ↗
Ratified July 9, 1868: birthright citizenship, equal protection and due process. Section 2 ended the three-fifths clause and required a state's House apportionment to be reduced in proportion to adult male citizens denied the vote (the first appearance of 'male' in the Constitution). Section 3 disqualifies certain oath-breaking insurrectionists from office.
Effect: The apportionment penalty was never enforced, but Equal Protection became the basis of one-person-one-vote and racial-gerrymandering law in the 20th century.
- 1870 Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment ↗
Ratified February 3, 1870: the right to vote may not be denied 'on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude'. Congress followed with Enforcement Acts (1870–71).
Effect: Black men voted and held office across the South during Reconstruction, but the amendment's lack of protection against facially neutral tests let Southern states disenfranchise Black voters from the 1890s.
- 1872 Law
House elections moved to the national Election Day ↗
Act of February 2, 1872 required House elections on the same Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years (effective 1876; Maine, under its state constitution, kept September congressional elections until 1958). Now 2 U.S.C. § 7.
Effect: Aligned congressional and presidential voting, ending scattered state election dates for the House.
- 1887 Law
Electoral Count Act ↗
Passed February 3, 1887 in response to the disputed 1876 election: states resolving contests under laws fixed before Election Day by a 'safe harbor' deadline got conclusive treatment, and it set the joint-session procedure for objections (one member of each chamber) and for competing slates.
Effect: Governed electoral counts from 1888 through 2021; its ambiguities were exploited in the January 6, 2021 effort to overturn the result.
- 1888 Practice
Secret (Australian) ballot adopted (1888–1890s) ↗
Louisville, Kentucky (1888) and Massachusetts (law of 1888, first used statewide in 1889) adopted official, government-printed secret ballots listing all candidates; most states followed by the mid-1890s, replacing party-printed tickets cast in public view.
Effect: Curbed vote-buying and intimidation but also functioned as a de facto literacy test, and in the South was paired with other devices to depress Black and poor-white turnout.
- 1890 Practice
Southern disenfranchising constitutions (Mississippi Plan, 1890–1908) ↗
Beginning with Mississippi's 1890 constitution, every former Confederate state adopted some combination of poll taxes, literacy and 'understanding' tests, grandfather clauses, long residency rules and, later, white-only party primaries.
Effect: Black voter registration collapsed (in Louisiana from about 130,000 in 1896 to about 1,300 by 1904) and Southern turnout fell sharply for decades, producing the one-party 'Solid South'.
- 1913 Amendment
Seventeenth Amendment ↗
Ratified April 8, 1913: senators are elected directly by the people of each state, with the same voter qualifications as for the state legislature's larger house; governors may make temporary appointments to fill vacancies if the legislature allows.
Effect: Ended legislative selection of senators (and Senate deadlocks that left seats vacant); first full cycle of popular Senate elections in 1914.
- 1915 Court
Guinn v. United States ↗
The Supreme Court struck down Oklahoma's grandfather clause, which exempted from a literacy test anyone whose ancestors could vote before 1866, as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.
Effect: First major judicial blow to Jim Crow disenfranchisement, though states shifted to other devices such as white primaries.
- 1920 Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment ↗
Ratified August 18, 1920 (certified August 26): the right to vote may not be denied on account of sex. Women already voted fully in 15 mostly Western states, starting with Wyoming (territory 1869, state 1890).
Effect: Roughly doubled the electorate for the 1920 election, though Black women in the South remained largely barred by Jim Crow laws.
- 1924 Law
Indian Citizenship Act ↗
Act of June 2, 1924 declared all Native Americans born in the United States to be citizens.
Effect: Citizenship did not guarantee the ballot: several states kept Native Americans from voting through guardianship, taxation and residency rules until court rulings in Arizona and New Mexico (1948) and a Utah law change (1957).
- 1933 Amendment
Twentieth Amendment ↗
Ratified January 23, 1933: presidential terms begin January 20 and congressional terms January 3, shortening the lame-duck period; it also addresses the death of a President-elect and lets Congress legislate for contingent-election gaps.
Effect: First applied to the 74th Congress (January 3, 1935) and the 1937 inauguration; the newly elected Congress now counts the electoral votes.
- 1944 Court
Smith v. Allwright ↗
The Supreme Court held Texas's all-white Democratic primary unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment, because primaries are an integral part of the state election machinery.
Effect: Ended the white primary, the decisive Jim Crow tool in one-party states; Black registration in the South rose from about 3% to about 12% by 1947.
- 1951 Amendment
Twenty-second Amendment ↗
Ratified February 27, 1951: no person may be elected President more than twice (or more than once after serving over two years of another's term).
Effect: Codified the two-term tradition broken by Franklin Roosevelt; first binding on Eisenhower.
- 1961 Amendment
Twenty-third Amendment ↗
Ratified March 29, 1961: the District of Columbia receives presidential electors equal to the least populous state (three).
Effect: D.C. residents first voted for President in 1964, raising the Electoral College to 538.
- 1962 Court
Baker v. Carr ↗
The Supreme Court held that challenges to legislative malapportionment are justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause.
Effect: Opened federal courts to the redistricting suits that produced one-person-one-vote two years later.
- 1964 Amendment
Twenty-fourth Amendment ↗
Ratified January 23, 1964: no poll tax or other tax may be a condition of voting in federal primaries or general elections.
Effect: Abolished federal-election poll taxes in the five states still using them (Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia).
- 1964 Court
Wesberry v. Sanders ↗
Decided February 17, 1964: Article I, Section 2 requires congressional districts within a state to be as nearly equal in population as practicable ('one person, one vote').
Effect: Forced nationwide redrawing of malapportioned House districts that had overweighted rural voters.
- 1964 Court
Reynolds v. Sims ↗
Decided June 15, 1964: the Equal Protection Clause requires both houses of state legislatures to be apportioned by population.
Effect: Ended 'little federal' state senates and shifted state power toward cities and suburbs, reshaping who drew congressional maps.
- 1965 Law
Voting Rights Act of 1965 ↗
Signed August 6, 1965: banned literacy tests in covered jurisdictions (nationwide from 1970, permanently from 1975), authorized federal examiners, created Section 2's nationwide ban on discriminatory practices, and required covered jurisdictions (Section 4(b) formula) to preclear election changes under Section 5.
Effect: Black registration in Mississippi rose from about 7% in 1964 to nearly 60% by 1968; later amendments added language-minority protections (1975) and a discriminatory-results test for Section 2 (1982).
- 1966 Court
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections ↗
The Supreme Court held that conditioning the vote in state elections on payment of a poll tax violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Effect: Extended the 24th Amendment's ban on poll taxes to state and local elections.
- 1967 Law
Single-member congressional district law ↗
Pub. L. 90-196 (December 14, 1967) requires states with more than one representative to elect them from single-member districts, barring at-large or multi-member House elections (2 U.S.C. § 2c).
Effect: Fixed the district-based House system used today and blocked at-large elections as a response to the VRA.
- 1971 Amendment
Twenty-sixth Amendment ↗
Ratified July 1, 1971, after Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) upheld an 18-year-old vote for federal but not state elections: the voting age may not be set above 18.
Effect: Added roughly 11 million potential voters for 1972; previously only Georgia and Kentucky allowed voting at 18 (Alaska 19, Hawaii 20).
- 1971 Law
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 ↗
Passed by Congress in 1971 and signed February 7, 1972: required disclosure of federal campaign contributions and expenditures and limited media spending.
Effect: Began modern federal campaign-finance regulation; its weakness was exposed by Watergate-era fundraising.
- 1974 Law
Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 ↗
Post-Watergate amendments created the Federal Election Commission, capped contributions and spending, and established public financing of presidential campaigns.
Effect: First publicly funded presidential general election in 1976; spending caps were partly struck down in Buckley v. Valeo.
- 1976 Court
Buckley v. Valeo ↗
The Supreme Court upheld contribution limits and disclosure but struck down limits on independent expenditures and on candidates' overall spending (absent public funding) as First Amendment violations.
Effect: Set the 'money as speech' framework for all later campaign-finance law.
- 1986 Court
Thornburg v. Gingles ↗
Interpreting the 1982 amendments to VRA Section 2, the Court set three preconditions for vote-dilution claims: a sufficiently large and compact minority group, minority political cohesion, and white bloc voting that usually defeats minority-preferred candidates.
Effect: Became the basis for drawing majority-minority districts, especially after the 1990 census.
- 1993 Law
National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter) ↗
Signed May 20, 1993: requires states to offer voter registration with driver's license applications and at public-assistance offices, accept a national mail-in form, and follow uniform rules for list maintenance.
Effect: Made registration far easier and standardized when and how voters may be removed from the rolls.
- 2000 Court
Bush v. Gore ↗
Decided December 12, 2000: the Court held Florida's court-ordered recount lacked uniform standards under the Equal Protection Clause and, 5–4, that no constitutional recount could finish by the safe-harbor date.
Effect: Ended the Florida recount, settling the 2000 election for George W. Bush, and prompted national election-administration reform.
- 2002 Law
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain–Feingold) ↗
Signed March 27, 2002: banned national-party 'soft money' and restricted corporate- and union-funded 'electioneering communications' close to elections; added 'stand by your ad' disclaimers.
Effect: Largely upheld in McConnell v. FEC (2003); its electioneering limits were struck down in Citizens United (2010).
- 2002 Law
Help America Vote Act ↗
Signed October 29, 2002 after the 2000 Florida recount: funded replacement of punch-card and lever machines, required statewide computerized registration lists, provisional ballots, accessible voting, and ID for some first-time mail registrants; created the Election Assistance Commission.
Effect: Nationalized minimum standards for election administration and voting equipment.
- 2008 Court
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board ↗
The Court upheld Indiana's photo-ID requirement for in-person voting against a facial constitutional challenge.
Effect: Cleared the way for the spread of strict voter-ID laws in the following decade.
- 2010 Court
Citizens United v. FEC ↗
Decided January 21, 2010: the Court held 5–4 that the First Amendment bars limits on independent political expenditures by corporations and unions, overruling Austin (1990) and part of McConnell.
Effect: Allowed unlimited corporate and union independent spending on federal campaigns.
- 2010 Court
SpeechNow.org v. FEC ↗
Decided March 26, 2010 by the en banc D.C. Circuit, applying Citizens United: contribution limits cannot be applied to groups that make only independent expenditures.
Effect: Created the super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums if it does not coordinate with candidates.
- 2013 Court
Shelby County v. Holder ↗
Decided June 25, 2013: the Court held 5–4 that the VRA's Section 4(b) coverage formula, based on 1960s–70s data, is unconstitutional.
Effect: Ended Section 5 preclearance for all previously covered jurisdictions; several states then adopted new ID, registration and polling-place rules without federal review.
- 2019 Court
Rucho v. Common Cause ↗
Decided June 27, 2019: the Court held 5–4 that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable political questions in federal court.
Effect: Left partisan gerrymandering to state courts, state constitutions, independent commissions and Congress.
- 2020 Court
Chiafalo v. Washington ↗
The Court unanimously held that states may require presidential electors to vote for their pledged candidate and penalize or replace 'faithless' electors.
Effect: Ended the post-2016 push by electors to vote independently; most states now bind electors.
- 2022 Law
Electoral Count Reform Act ↗
Enacted December 29, 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (H.R. 2617): the Vice President's role in the count is ministerial, objections need one-fifth of each chamber, each state's governor (or designated official) issues a single certificate subject to expedited judicial review, and Election Day may be extended only for 'extraordinary and catastrophic' events.
Effect: Replaced the 1887 framework in response to January 6, 2021; first applied to the January 6, 2025 count.
- 2023 Court
Moore v. Harper ↗
Decided June 27, 2023: the Court held 6–3 that the Elections Clause does not exempt state legislatures from state judicial review under state constitutions, rejecting the strong 'independent state legislature' theory while reserving federal review of state courts that exceed ordinary bounds.
Effect: Preserved state courts' power to police congressional maps and election rules under state law.
- 2024 Court
Trump v. Anderson ↗
Decided March 4, 2024 (per curiam): states may not enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against federal officeholders or candidates; that power rests with Congress.
Effect: Reversed Colorado's removal of Donald Trump from its 2024 primary ballot and blocked similar state actions.
- 2026 Court
Louisiana v. Callais ↗
Decided April 29, 2026 (6–3, Alito, J.), after reargument on October 15, 2025: Louisiana's map creating a second majority-Black district (SB8) was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, because VRA Section 2, 'properly construed', did not require it. The Court did not strike down Section 2 but required plaintiffs to show, under an updated Gingles analysis, an alternative majority-minority district drawn without race-based criteria that meets the state's legitimate (including political) goals, and polarized voting that reflects race rather than partisanship.
Effect: Sharply narrows Section 2 vote-dilution claims and the legal basis for race-conscious majority-minority districts drawn after Thornburg v. Gingles.