If the two houses of Congress cannot agree on adjournment, who sets the time? Any power and rights not given to the U.S. or prohibited to the states by the U.S. Constitution are specified as belonging to whom?
If you got those questions wrong, you wouldn’t have been allowed to register to vote in Alabama in 1965. These questions come from a literacy test, which is one of the ways voting has been restricted in the past.
Many such restrictions were explored in Tuesday’s “Who Gets to Vote?” interactive voting workshop.
Held in the Seeley-Mudd learning center, the workshop was led by History Department Chair and Professor Marcy Sacks, Visiting Assistant Professor of History Emily Smith and Visiting Assistant Professor of History Sarah Jacobson.
One of the goals of the workshop, according to Smith, was to encourage students to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
Another goal was to teach students how much of a struggle it has been for some groups of people to secure the right to vote, Sacks said.
“I want students to realize we have not been on a relentless path forward,” Sacks said.
Sacks began the workshop by passing out a legitimate literacy test from 1965. In order to register to vote in many southern states at this time, people had to pass a literacy test, Sacks said.
The supposed goal of literacy tests, which consisted of questions about the U.S. government and its history, was to ensure that voting citizens were educated. Students at the workshop were given a shortened version of the test with 35 questions and 10 minutes to complete it. You had to get every question correct within the time limit to be allowed to register to vote, Sacks said.
After the ten minutes, Sacks asked if anyone thought they got all the answers right; nobody did.
She then explained that the real purpose of these tests was to prevent Black people from voting after the 15th Amendment was passed.
“None of you apparently would be a voter right now, because you couldn’t pass this,” Sacks said. “But if a lot of you walked into that county clerk’s office to register to vote, with a wink and a nod I might hand you a different test.”
Next, Smith led an activity showcasing different groups of people that weren’t able to vote at different times in history. She handed everyone a slip of paper describing a historical identity, and whether or not that identity of people were able to vote at a specific point in time. She then asked students to vote in a faux election.
Afterward, Smith asked the participants why many of them didn’t vote. They cited the reasons from their slips of paper, including not owning land, being under 21, an indigenous person who wouldn’t give up his tribal affiliation and so on.
“I hope they (took) away a knowledge of how broad swaths of the population were systematically denied the right to vote over the course of U.S. history,” Smith said.
Sacks added that while in many ways voting rights have expanded, there are still obstacles to voting for lots of people. In Florida and Texas for example, it’s hard to get an absentee ballot, Sacks said, adding that those obstacles specifically target young people who go to college out of state – because young people tend to vote progressively.
“There are people who don’t want you to vote and there are people who do,” Sacks said. “Depending on where you’re from, you’re either encouraged to vote, or there are obstacles thrown up that make it very hard for you to vote.”
According to Sacks she has been urging students to vote for many years, and said she believes that this election cycle she has had more students register to vote than any previous year.
“One of the reasons I encourage students to register to vote is because so many people are trying so hard to make sure you can’t. You should resist that just on principle,” Sacks said.
One student in attendance, Rockford first-year October Travis, said that after learning about how few people vote and how complicated the process can be, they think there should be more resources available to guide young people through the voting process.
“If you have somebody who knows what’s going on and how to help you get all set with it it’s not terribly complicated, but when you don’t, it’s very complicated,” Travis said.
Sacks concluded the workshop by highlighting how challenging it is, still, for people to vote.
Nov. 5, election day is a work day, some areas have fewer polling places meaning longer lines and it can be unclear where someone is supposed to go to vote. Sacks stressed that the issue of low voting is not just one of apathy, but one of legitimate obstacles to people’s rights.
“There are constant forces pushing back on the expansion of democracy, and the only way to work against that is to be aware of it and keep pushing forward against the backlashes that happen,” Sacks said.
Leave a Reply