The Roots of Freedom

The Mayflower Compact was the first move toward democracy on the North American continent. Before the Pilgrims even disembarked from the Mayflower, they had forged an agreement to form a "civil Body Politick" to frame just and equal laws for the general good of the colony. The compact served as the basis of government in Plymouth for ten years, with later governments in the colony following its example.

Once Plymouth grew into several colonies under British rule, the democratic process gave way to the control of the British crown. The British controlled their colonies from afar. British officials were sent as governors of the colonies. Colonists were British subjects, and most were content to remain so. However, the colonists were not treated as British citizens with full rights and privileges. The American Revolution grew from the colonists' desire to be recognized by their King as Englishmen in a New World.

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Taxation, Representation, Revolution: The Aftermath of 1776

The American Revolution may evoke images of the Boston Tea Party, George Washington crossing the Delaware River or Paul Revere's ride. The right to vote played an essential role in the colonists' increasing ill will toward the British crown.

Exorbitant taxes and tariffs were placed on essential items like tea and stamps, leading "radical" colonists like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry to cry out that taxation without representation was tyranny. While the colonists believed in the crown's power to legislate the interests of the empire, they also believed their interests as Englishmen were being ignored.

After several failed attempts to reason with the British crown, colonists met in the First Continental Congress in 1774. They wished for a reconciliation with England but found their plans thwarted. Animosity soon gave way to the American Revolution, establishing democracy in the former English colonies, now the United States of America. The leaders of the fledgling nation drafted several plans for its government, finally ratifying the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The Constitution guarantees the right of American citizens to vote for their representatives. For some Americans, the right to vote has always been secure. Others have won hard-fought battles to earn the privilege to choose the men and women they want in office.

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African Americans: From "Jim Crow" to Civil Rights

"So long as Negroes were slaves, so long as they posed no threat to the political and economic supremacy of whites, men were content to live with them on terms of relative intimacy. But when the slave became a citizen, when he got a ballot in his hot hand and a wrench and pencil and paper---well, something had to be done with him." (Before the Mayflower, A History of Black America - Lerone Bennett (1993 - Penguin)

On March 15, 1870, Congress adopted the Fifteenth Amendment, designed to guarantee that the rights of citizens of the United States to vote would not be denied by the United States or any State "on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."

On paper, the 15th Amendment granted black citizens the right to vote. In practice, Southern states resisted the post-Civil War initiatives to better the conditions for their black citizens. The "Jim Crow" laws were named after an early Negro minstrel song. Their result was anything but harmonious for the black population in the South. "Jim Crow" kept black citizens away from the polls using expensive poll taxes, fees they could not afford to pay from below the poverty line. Literacy tests, another popular requirement, contained trick questions and other loopholes to stop black voters in the South.

It would be almost a century before the Civil Rights Movement began to eradicate these "separate and unequal" strategies and restore black voters to the rights they had been guaranteed by the 15th Amendment. The 24th Amendment in 1961 outlawed poll taxes or other taxes as a condition for voting. African Americans have come out from the shadow of "Jim Crow" and enjoy full voting privileges.

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Women Win the Right to Choose

After long years of struggle, women won the right to vote in 1919, with the passage of the 19th Amendment. For some women, it had been an internal battle with their husbands and loved ones, who believed their place was in the home.

Women had been taking small steps for suffrage since the creation of the United States. New Jersey's state constitution granted women the right to vote as early as 1805. Kentucky widows with children were allowed to vote in school board elections in the 1840s. Since before the Civil War, women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott had been crusading for the abolition of slavery, temperance and other important issues of their times. These same women began to lobby for women's suffrage in 1848. Stanton and others at the Seneca Falls Convention drafted a general declaration of the rights of women. After the 15th Amendment gave blacks the right to vote but not women, the suffrage movement gained a new fervor. The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed in 1869 to push for a Constitutional amendment. Lucy Stone organized the American Women Suffrage Association that same year to work in the state legislatures. By 1913, twelve states had granted women suffrage. The National Woman's party in 1913 used the voting power of the enfranchised women in those states to help push a constitutional Amendment through Congress and the state legislatures.

In a pamphlet written in 1915, Jane Addams explained why women could no longer afford to be confined to their households: "Public-spirited women . . . do not wish . . . to take over men's affairs. They simply want an opportunity to do their own work and to take care of those affairs which naturally and historically belong to women, but which are constantly being overlooked and slighted in our political institutions."

The work of the women's suffrage movement came to fruition in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

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Further Expanding the Right to Vote

As the turbulent 1960s drew to a close, the young people of the United States expressed their growing dissatisfaction with the Vietnam Conflict and the government in general. College-age adults were divided, from the Flower Children to the supporters of the military in Southeast Asia. Many of these young adults were barred from participating in the voting process because of their age. Recognizing the power of collegiate voting bloc, Congress passed and ratified the 26th Amendment in 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

While the 26th Amendment added millions of voters in the United States, in recent years the voting population has decreased. In 1993, Congress passed a new law to reverse the declining voter registration. The National Voter Registration Act, or "Motor Voter Law" permits registration at motor vehicle departments and other agencies.

Candidates recognize the importance of luring younger voters. In the 1992 election, "Rock the Vote" and the MTV network's "Choose or Lose" campaign aimed to register new voters on college campuses. MTV hosted town meetings with Bill Clinton, prompting the now-infamous "Boxers or briefs" question. At both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this year, both parties have recognized the power of young people. George W. Bush's nephew, George P. Bush, the photogenic son of Florida governor Jeb Bush, spoke at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, just weeks after being named one of People Magazine's "Most Eligible Bachelors." And in L.A., Al Gore's daughter, Karenna, took center stage at the Democratic National Convention, to tell the nation about her father's campaign.

Candidates recognize that the voting public in the United States is no longer made up of white landowners over the age of 21. The history of the United States has broadened the voting public to include minorities, women and young adults, all of whom bring their own issues and responsibilities to their ideal candidates.

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Florida Voting History
Source: http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/flafacts/shorthis.html#statehood

Florida became the 27th State in the United States on March 3, 1845. By 1850, there were over 80,000 residents, including 39,000 African Americans and 1,000 free blacks. Almost immediately after statehood, Florida voters were faced with the defining question, whether to be a free state or a slave state. Most Florida voters, white males aged 21 and older, did not oppose slavery. Their suspicion of the North grew during the 1850s, until in 1860, not one Florida voter elected Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln took office, Florida joined the other southern states in seceding from the Union. Florida was now a Confederate State.

In the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, Republican state and federal officials enacted laws aimed at improving the lives of African Americans in the South. It would be almost a century before those improvements came to fruition. While state Republican government officials and newly enfranchised black voters elected Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 presidential election, Republicans lost power in Florida. African-Americans were left with little voice in state government when the Democrats took over control of the State. Not until 1937 did Florida repeal its poll tax requirements, allowing African Americans and poor whites to vote. The end of the Jim Crow era in the United States restored Florida's African American population to its full voting privileges.

Women in Florida who had crusaded for African-American suffrage in the hopes of gaining their own, were granted the right to vote in Florida in 1920. Florida recognized the rights of its women citizens to vote in state elections when the 19th Amendment made it possible for women to vote on the federal level.

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Governing the Right to Vote

The U.S. Constitution outlines the rules for the federal elections process. Senators and members of the House of Representatives are elected through popular vote. While the popular vote is important in presidential elections, it is not the deciding factor. The President is elected by the electoral college, a group of electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives each state has, to elect the President. State voters elect the members of the electoral college. U.S. government officials or employees are prohibited from serving on the electoral college.

The members of the electoral college vote in their state for the presidential candidates. Almost since its inception, the electoral college has come under harsh criticism. To win the presidency, candidates need only a majority of the electoral college votes, not popular votes. Candidates who have been elected to office with victories in the electoral college but not the popular vote include Abraham Lincoln (1860, but not 1864), Woodrow Wilson (1912 and 1916), Harry S. Truman (1948), John F. Kennedy (1960), Richard M. Nixon (1968, but not 1972), and Bill Clinton (1992). These presidents won a plurality, but not a majority, of the popular vote. To date, no successful attempts have been made to alter the electoral college.

Primaries

Voters in the United States are able to voice their opinions almost from day one of the campaign process. Primaries, preliminary elections in each state, allow the voters themselves to nominate the candidates of a particular party. State voters choose the presidential party candidates according to state law. Primaries can either be open or closed. Any registered voter may vote for a candidate from any party in an open primary. Closed primaries, as in Florida, for example, require voters to register with a party. Only voters affiliated with a particular party can vote in that party's primary. In states and localities where one party is dominant the primary, rather than the regular election, is crucial in the selection of officeholders.

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