When the nation was founded, voting was almost exclusively reserved for propertied white men. Since then, voting rights have slowly grown more inclusive, expanding to an ever broader cross-section of the American public, but this progress has almost always been hard won.
The history of voting rights in the US is largely the story of the struggles of women, former slaves, native peoples, and immigrants to secure the right to vote – then to keep it. Repeated attacks on voting rights and efforts to manipulate the outcome of the vote continue up to this day, as discussed in The American Leader’s problem brief on voting rights.
This timeline in The American Leader offers a brief glimpse into the steady but often challenged expansion of voting rights.
The American Leader
The American Leader, a nonprofit, progress-oriented news and knowledge center, is committed to giving the public an unrelenting view of the systemic problems that affect our lives and the progress being made to resolve them.
Rather than report on breaking news, The American Leader gathers the best available datapoints and connects them so that the reader can stay focused on the problems that matter most. Learn more here.
