Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A poll tax is a tax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of this tax revenue.
The amendment prohibited a poll tax for voters in federal elections, but it was not until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional.
The poll tax, along with literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation, [43] such as by the Ku Klux Klan, achieved the desired effect of disenfranchising African Americans. Generally, In the United States, the term "poll tax" is used to mean a tax that must be paid in order to vote, rather than a capitation tax simply.
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.) defended Democrats’ opposition to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, calling it a “modern poll tax” in an interview on NewsNation’s “The ...
The poll tax mechanism varied on a state-by-state basis; in Alabama, the poll tax was cumulative, meaning that a man had to pay all poll taxes due from the age of twenty-one onward in order to vote. In other states, poll taxes had to be paid for several years before being eligible to vote. Enforcement of poll tax laws was patchy.
I have worked at the voting polls in Vanderburgh County elections for the past 20 years, and I feel compelled to say this: Too many Hoosiers are being denied their right to vote because of ...
Forssenius the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes or "equivalent or milder substitutes" cannot be imposed on voters. [citation needed] 1966. Tax payment and wealth requirements for voting in state elections are prohibited by the Supreme Court in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. [25] The poll tax would remain on the books, unenforceable ...