Poll taxes were used in the United States until they were outlawed under section 10 of theVoting Rights Act of 1965.Poll taxes (taxes of a fixed amount on every liable individual, regardless of their income) had also been a major source of government funding among the colonies and states which went on to form the United States. Poll taxes became a tool ofdisenfranchisement in theSouth duringJim Crow, following the end ofReconstruction. The24th Amendment, ratified 23 January 1964, abolished the use poll taxes forFederal elections in the United States.[1] The operative clause reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
— U.S. Const. amend. XXIV, § 1
The ratification of the 24th Amendment was followed by the passage of theVoting Rights Act of 1965, to which section 10 empowered theUnited States Attorney General to bring lawsuits toenjoin poll taxes in State and local elections.[2] Finally, inHarper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), theSupreme Court held that poll taxes violated theEqual Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.[2]
Apoll tax is atax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Various privileges of citizenship, includingvoter registration, issuance ofdriving licenses, residenthunting, andfishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of thistax revenue. In places that instituted acumulative poll tax, missed poll taxes from prior years must also be paid to receive the restricted privileges.[3][4][5]
Although often associated with states of the formerConfederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states. This includedCalifornia,Connecticut,Maine,Massachusetts,Minnesota,New Hampshire,Ohio,Pennsylvania,Vermont,Rhode Island, andWisconsin.[6] Poll taxes had been a major source of government funding among the colonies which formed the United States. For instance, poll taxes made up from one-third to one-half of the tax revenue of colonial Massachusetts.
Property taxes assumed a larger share of tax revenues. Land values rose when population increased, which encouraged settlement in the American West.[7] Some western states found no need for poll tax requirements; but poll taxes and payment incentives remained in eastern states.
Poll taxes became a tool ofdisenfranchisement in theSouth duringJim Crow, following the end ofReconstruction. Payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number ofstates until 1965. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of theJim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of theFifteenth Amendment to theUnited States Constitution, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included agrandfather clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax.[8] These laws, along with unfairly implementedliteracy tests and extra-legal intimidation,[9] such as by theKu Klux Klan, achieved the desired effect ofdisenfranchisingAsian-American,Native American voters andpoor whites as well. The poll tax was particularly disproportionately directed atAfrican-American voters.
Proof of payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia (1877), North and South Carolina, Virginia (until 1882 and again from 1902 with its new constitution),[10][11] and Texas (1902).[12] The Texas poll tax, instituted on people who were eligible to vote in all other respects, was between $1.50 and $1.75 ($63.60 in2024). This was "a lot of money at the time, and a big barrier to the working classes and poor."[12] Georgia created a cumulative poll tax requirement in 1877: men of any race 21 to 60 years of age had to pay a sum of money for every year from the time they had turned 21, or from the time that the law took effect.[13]
The poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. The laws that allowed the poll tax did not specify a certain group of people.[14] This meant that anyone, including white women, could also be discriminated against when they went to vote. One example is in Alabama, where white women were discriminated against and then organized to secure their right to vote. One group of women that did this was the Women's Joint Legislative Council of Alabama (WJLC).[14] African American women also organized in groups against being denied voting rights. In 1942, an African American woman named Lottie Polk Gaffney, along with four other women, unsuccessfully sued the South Carolina Cherokee County Registration Board with the help of theNAACP.[15] Gaffney sued for her right to vote after having been stopped from registering to vote two years earlier. As a result of her suing the county the mailman did not deliver her mail for quite some time.[16]
Many states required payment of the tax at a time separate from the election and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote. In addition, many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements.[17] These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, as they moved frequently.
The poll tax was sometimes used alone or together with a literacy qualification. In a kind ofgrandfather clause, North Carolina in 1900 exempted from the poll tax those men entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867. This excluded all blacks, who did not then have suffrage.[18]
In 1937, inBreedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), theUnited States Supreme Court found that poll tax as a prerequisite for registration to vote was constitutional. The case involved the Georgia poll tax of $1 (equivalent to $22 in 2024). Georgia abolished its poll tax in 1945.[19] Florida repealed its poll tax in 1937.[20]: 346
The24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections,[21] but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections. TheVoting Rights Act of 1965 made clarifying remarks which helped to outlaw the practice nationwide, as well as make it enforceable by law.
In the 1966 case ofHarper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court reversed its decision inBreedlove v. Suttles to also include the imposition of poll taxes in state elections as violating theEqual Protection Clause of the14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
TheHarper ruling was one of several that relied on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the24th Amendment. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, Federal courts declared unconstitutional poll tax laws in the last four states that still had them, starting withTexas on February 9. Decisions followed forAlabama (March 3) andVirginia (March 25).Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equivalent to $19 in 2024) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on April 8, 1966 by a federal panel.[22] Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court rejected the arrangement in 1965 inHarman v. Forssenius.
| State | Cost | Implementation | Repeal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $1.50 ($56.69 in2024) | 1901[23]: 471 | 1966[24] |
| Arkansas | $1.00 ($35.00 in2024) | 1891[23]: 471 [Notes 1] | 1964[26] |
| California | $2.00 ($75.59 in2024) | 1850[27] | 1914 |
| Connecticut | $2.00 ($67.49 in2024)[28] | 1649 | 1947 |
| Delaware | Each county can determine its own amount.[29] | 1897[23]: 471 | |
| Florida | $1.00[30] ($35.00 in2024) | 1885[23]: 471 [Notes 2] | 1937[31] |
| Georgia | $1.00 ($29.53 in2024) | 1877[32][Notes 3] | 1945[14] |
| Louisiana | $1.00[34] ($37.80 in2024) | 1898[23]: 471 | 1934[35] |
| Maine | $3.00 ($101.24 in2024) | 1845 | 1973[36] |
| Massachusetts | $3.00[37] ($61.62 in2024) | 1865[23]: 470 | 1890[23]: 470 |
| Minnesota | $1.00 ($25.54 in2024) | 1863 | ? |
| Mississippi | $2.00 ($69.99 in2024) | 1890[23]: 471 | 1966[38] |
| New Hampshire | $3.00 ($55.37 in2024)[39] | ? | ? |
| North Carolina | $1.00 ($18.46 in2024) to 2.00 ($36.91 in2024)[39] | 1900[23]: 471 | 1920[14] |
| Oklahoma | $2.00 ($67.49 in2024) | 1907 | 1986[40] |
| Pennsylvania | $1.00 ($18.46 in2024) to 5.00 ($92.28 in2024)[39] | 1865[23]: 470 | 1933[41] |
| Rhode Island | $1.00 | 1865[23]: 470 | ? |
| South Carolina | $1.00 ($37.80 in2024) | 1895[23]: 471 | 1951[42] |
| Tennessee | $1.00 ($24.87 in2024) | 1870[23]: 471 [Notes 4] | 1953[14] |
| Texas | $1.50 ($54.51 in2024) to 1.75[44] ($63.60 in2024) | 1902[23]: 471 | 1966[44] |
| Vermont | $1.00[45] ($16.85 in2024) | 1778 | 1982 |
| Virginia | $65.00 in 2021 | 1902[23]: 471 ($54.51 in2024) | 1966[46][47] |
Informational notes
Citations
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