Existing comment:
End of the Poll Tax
On January 23, 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment ended the Poll Tax. The amendment prohibits the states or federal government from requiring voters to pay a poll tax before they are able to vote in a national election. The use of the poll tax was revived following the end of Reconstruction as a mechanism to restrict access to voting for underprivileged people in general and African Americans in particular. Though this amendment only applies to national elections, a subsequent 1966 Supreme Court decision in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections overturned an earlier precedent, holding that the use of poll taxes in state elections would violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. |