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Barriers To Voting In The United States

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Voting is an important activity which is helpful in expressing the insights, ideologies and motivations of a mass for political parties. Voter eligibility in both national and state election has boundaries and limitations. In some states, only adult white male property owners having certain religious believes had the privilege to vote. As a result, only five percent were eligible to vote in 1790. There were other obstructions such as white only primaries, literacy tests, race, gender and age. After the fifteenth Amendment was passed, a number of states adopted grandfather clause which allowed only adult males to vote whose grandfather is eligible to vote. African American women also struggled from exercising the franchise to voting. Because of poll tax, less wealthy citizens were discouraged from registering. …show more content…

Contemporary barriers to voting vary among age, racial, social and economic groups. Younger people for instance have no time to vote particularly if there is a long line at the polling station. This barrier of inconvenience makes people lazy to a point they do not care enough to make an effort. Some feel they have little or no impact in the outcome of the election. Language is another contemporary barrier to voting. If for instance, we are to inform voters, we must communicate in a language they understand. How can a potential voter judge a candidate whose speech they cannot possibly understand? Potential voters who are not proficient in English may be overwhelmed by the terminology to an extent that they ignore

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