Stepping inside a voting booth is perhaps the most important part of being a U.S. citizen. But the U.S. Constitution does not even address who has—or does not have—the right to vote. The Founding Fathers initially left those decisions up to the state governments. Over the years, however, Congress has passed several amendments to the Constitution to extend voting rights to include every citizen over the age of 18. Just how did we get from white-male-landowner suffrage to where we are today? It has been a long and challenging road.
Suffrage is the right to vote.
PROPERTY EQUALS POWER
Before the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the right to vote was restricted to people who owned property or paid taxes. For the most part, the only people who met those criteria were white adult men. Some colonies also enforced religious
