History of the ballot in the U.S.

The above lithograph honors the day that the 15th Amendment became law (was ratified).

There has always been some group pushing to broaden suffrage.  Still, the voting population and the range of ballot issues are not as imagined by the Founding Fathers.   “They intended a world in which a limited number of propertied men like themselves rose above self-interest and voted on behalf of the rest of “the people.”

The vote inched its way closer so that by 1856 “[almost] all white men could vote … Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont allowed free African American men to vote.  It wasn’t until 1918 and the evidence of service made by women that President Woodrow Wilson endorsed the 19th Amendment.  Read more>>>