Our History

The League of Women Voters was founded as a successor organization to the National American Woman Suffrage Association by Carrie Chapman Catt in 1920, just six months before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, giving all American women the right to vote after a 72-year fight for women’s suffrage.

The League’s goals were twofold: to prepare women to be informed voting citizens, and to promote the social legislation characteristic of domestic politics such as advocating for better working conditions for women, child labor legislation, and prison reform. Catt was anxious to avoid women from being identified as a special interest group. Instead, her philosophy was that by having the vote, women’s involvement in politics would make for a naturally feminized and more humane state.

Catt spoke at the Conference of Women Voters held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle 17 November 1919, which was sponsored by the Utah State Suffrage Council (then presided over by Utah feminists Emmeline B. Wells, Emily S. Richards, among others). Three years later, 18 women gathered in the Ladies Parlor of the Hotel Utah for the first regular meeting of the Utah League of Women Voters. Leah Dunham Widtsoe (wife of LDS Church Apostle John A. Widtsoe), was elected as State Chairman, and each member paid $1 in dues.

U.S. VOTING HISTORY TIMELINE

1789 WHITE MALE NATIVE-BORN CITIZEN WHO OWN PROPERTY OR PAY TAXES

U.S. Constitution and state laws

Though all 12 states allowed some rudimentary form of popular vote, only six ratifying states allowed any form of popular vote specifically for Presidential electors. In most states, only white men, and in many only those who owned property, could vote. Free black men could vote in four Northern states, and women could vote in New Jersey, if they owned property, until 1807. In some states, there was a nominal religious test for voting. Voting was hampered by poor communications and infrastructure and the labor demands imposed by farming. Two months passed after the presidential election before the votes were counted and Washington was notified that he had been elected President. 

1856 ALL WHITE MALE CITIZENS

The last state abolishes property requirements

In 1856, North Carolina was the last state to abolish property qualifications for white men to vote. However, most older states with property restrictions dropped them by the mid-1820s except for Rhode Island, Virginia, and North Carolina. No new states had property qualifications although three had adopted tax-paying qualifications - Ohio, Louisiana, and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long-lasting.

1870 BLACK MALES IN NORTHERN STATES

The 15th Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But Jim Crow laws are upheld by the Supreme Court.

The 15th Amendment granting African American men the right to vote was adopted into the U.S. Constitution in 1870. Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s discriminatory practices were used to prevent blacks from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that legal barriers were outlawed at the state and local levels if they denied African Americans their right to vote under the 15th Amendment.

In the late 1870s, the Southern Republican Party vanished with the end of Reconstruction, and Southern state governments effectively nullified both the 14th Amendment (passed in 1868, it guaranteed citizenship and all its privileges to African Americans) and the 15th amendment, stripping blacks in the South of the right to vote.

In the ensuing decades, various discriminatory practices including poll taxes and literacy tests—along with Jim Crow laws, intimidation, and outright violence—were used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote.

1920 WHITE WOMEN AND NORTHERN-STATE BLACK WOMEN

19th Amendment

1920 began with the last American troops returning from Europe after World War I and 1920 kicked off an era of change becoming the only decade in American history with a nickname - “The Roaring Twenties.”  It was the only year since the Bill of Rights that the Constitution was amended twice.  The 18th Amendment prohibited alcohol in the U.S. and the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. 

The last “yes” vote needed for ratification was provided on August 18, 1920, in the Tennessee House of Representatives passed in favor of the amendment by a vote of 50-49.  It was a nail-biter!! Many other notable events took place in 1920. Still, the suffrage movement, which included three generations of suffragists fighting long and hard, finally crossed that finish line giving women the right to vote.  

1943 CHINESE NATURALIZED CITIZENS

The Magnuson Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, was an immigration legislation proposed by U.S. Representative (later Senator) Warren G. Magnuson of Washington and signed into law on December 17, 1943, in the United States. It allowed Chinese immigration for the first time since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and permitted some Chinese immigrants already residing in the United States to become naturalized citizens.  This meant they could vote.  However, the Magnuson Act provided for the continuation of the ban against the ownership of property and businesses by ethnic Chinese. In many states, Chinese Americans (including US citizens) were denied property ownership rights either by law or de facto until the Magnuson Act itself was fully repealed in 1965.

1948 NATIVE AMERICANS

Last states grant voting rights to all Native Americans

Although Native Americans were legally named citizens of the United States in 1924, the road to the franchise was not an easy one. The right of Native Americans to vote in U.S. elections was recognized in 1948 with the landmark cases Harrison v. Laveen and Trujillo v. Garley. Even so, they were not eligible to vote in every state until 1962, when Utah became the last state to remove formal barriers.

But pernicious roadblocks remain to this day. Restrictive voting laws throughout the United States often carry a discriminatory effect, either by intent or consequence, for Native communities. Some of the major challenges to the ballot box faced by Native Americans include:

Restrictive voting laws that leave Native communities on the sidelines

The lack of proper allocation of election resources for Native communities

Removal of federal protections.

 1965 ALL CITIZENS OVER THE AGE OF 21

Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects voters nationwide

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.

Selma to Montgomery March

Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency in November 1963 upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the Presidential race of 1964, Johnson was officially elected in a landslide victory and used this mandate to push for legislation he believed would improve the American way of life, such as stronger voting rights laws.

After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Nevertheless, in the ensuing decades, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans, particularly those in the South, from exercising their right to vote.

During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, voting rights activists in the South were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. One event that outraged many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas, and whips after they refused to turn back.

Some protesters were severely beaten and bloodied, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television.

In the wake of the shocking incident, Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, the president outlined the devious ways in which election officials denied African American citizens the vote.

1971 ALL CITIZENS OVER THE AGE OF 18

26th Amendment

On July 5, 1971, President Richard Nixon formally certified the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted 18 to 21-year-olds the right to vote. Prior to this date, the voting age had been 21 in a majority of states, even though 18-year-olds were old enough to get married, work, and were expected to pay taxes. This was enacted in response to the Vietnam War protests because the average age of U.S. soldiers was 19. The slogan, “Old enough to fight, old enough to die” gained popularity.

In 1971, Senator Jennings Randolph, a Democrat of West Virginia, proposed a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age and it unanimously passed the Senate.  In the House of Representatives, only 19 out of 419 congressmen opposed it and it was sent to the states to be ratified.  It took just 100 days to receive the necessary three-fourths majority of state ratification.  On July 5, the 26th Amendment was formally adopted into the Constitution, adding 11 million potential voters to the electorate.  Half of these young cast their ballot in the 1972 presidential election.

1986 AMERICAN CITIZENS LIVING OVERSEAS

Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act

The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) requires that the states and territories allow certain groups of citizens to register and vote absentee in elections for Federal Offices. It includes members of the U.S. Uniformed Services and Merchant Marines, and the commissioned corps of the Public Health Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, their eligible family members; and U.S. citizens residing outside the United States. This Act provides the legal basis for these citizens’ absentee voting requirements for federal offices.

2013 VOTER SUPPRESSION ALLOWED

Supreme Court weakens Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was passed in 1965 to ensure that state and local governments do not deny American citizens the equal right to vote based on their race, color, or membership in a minority language group. This momentous piece of legislation enshrines the right of every citizen an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy.

But that right is under threat. In 2013, the Supreme Court eviscerated a key provision of the VRA. Section 5 of the law required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to obtain approval before changing voting rules. This process, known as “preclearance,” blocked discrimination before it occurred. In Shelby County v. Holder, the court invalidated Section 4 — which determines the states and localities covered by Section 5 — ruling Congress must pass a new formula to determine which states and localities would be subject to “preclearance.” The ruling had the effect of eliminating preclearance, ushering in a wave of efforts in states previously covered under Section 5 to restrict voting rights.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Our Commitment

There shall be no barriers to full participation in this organization on the basis of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, race, native or indigenous origin, age, generation, sexual orientation, culture, religion, belief system, marital status, parental status, socioeconomic status, language, accent, ability status, mental health, educational level or background, geography, nationality, work style, work experience, job role function, thinking style, personality type, physical appearance, political perspective or affiliation and/or any other characteristic that can be identified as recognizing or illustrating diversity.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to the organization’s current and future success in engaging all individuals, households, communities, and policy makers in creating a more perfect democracy.