It's Your Right!
These days most of us take voting for granted, but it hasn't always been that easy:
"Vote Early, Vote Often!"- That's what Chicago gangster Al Capone told his "friends" to do. In April during the 1928 Republican Primary in Chicago, Capone's gang harassed voters, stuffed ballot boxes and voted under fictitious names. They beat up voters who didn't agree with them, and even murdered party workers. The Chicago police - who got kickbacks from Al Capone - did nothing to stop the violence.
Other parts of the country have used different tactics to influence the voting process - not as violent as Capone's but still effective:
- Poll Taxes
- After the Civil War many Southern states made it difficult for African-Americans to vote by requiring people to pay a poll tax. If they couldn't afford to pay the tax they couldn't register to vote. In 1964 the Twenty-Fourth Amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes.
- Literacy Tests
- Making people take an impossibly difficult test was another way to keep blacks from registering to vote. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act banned the use of literacy tests. By 1969 the number of voting-age blacks registered went from twenty-three percent to sixty-one percent.
Nowadays it's easy to register to vote! In 1993 Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, the "Motor Voter Law." Now citizens can register by mail, when they obtain their driver's license, or at government agencies. You can even download a voter registration form online!
To be eligible to register in South Carolina you MUST:
- be a United States citizen
- be at least eighteen years old on or before the next election
- be a resident of South Carolina, this county and precinct
- not be under a court order declaring you mentally incompetent
- not be confined in any public prison resulting from a conviction of a crime
- have never been convicted of a felony or offense against the election laws OR if previously convicted, have served the entire sentence, including probation or parole, or have received a pardon for the conviction
Are you ready to register? Explore these links:
Remember - register to vote when you get your driver's license!
