Twenty‐fourth Amendment

Twenty‐fourth Amendment forbids states and the federal government to deny or abridge the right of a citizen of the United States to vote in a federal election because of failure to pay a poll tax or other assessment. Passed by Congress on 27 August 1962 and ratified on 23 January 1964, its target was the poll tax, a per capita levy long employed by southern states to prevent African‐Americans from voting.

By 1964 only five states still required would‐be voters to pay such an assessment, and even many Southerners favored its abolition. The principal sponsor of the Twenty‐fourth Amendment was Spessard Holland, a conservative Florida Democrat. Bills to abolish the poll tax were repeatedly introduced in Congress from 1939 onward; Holland himself took up the cause in 1949. By 1960 the idea was no longer particularly controversial. The only real disagreement was over whether the poll tax could be abolished by ordinary legislation or whether a constitutional amendment was required. Many liberals favored enactment of a statute, but Holland, who believed Congress lacked the authority to pass such a law, insisted on amending the Constitution (see Constitutional Amending Process).

The Twenty‐fourth Amendment encountered resistance from Virginia, which imposed a special federal registration requirement on voters who did not pay the poll tax in state elections. In Harman v. Forssenius (1965) the Supreme Court held this tactic unconstitutional. Although the new amendment did not prohibit requiring poll taxes in state elections, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), the Court invalidated that practice too, holding it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

See also Vote, Right to.

Michal R. Belknap