Our
Lady of the Elms Elementary Library
Our
Lady of the Elms Elementary Library
Presidential Elections
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Teacher Oz Presidents page |
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Teacher Oz General US History Facts Enjoy the flash maps showing the expansion of the United States over the years. |
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Historical Election Results (Close elections happened in 1876, 1884 and 2000. Browse the maps to see how Ohio voted in each election) |
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Amazingly, for over a hundred years, American women were not considered well-informed enough to vote in elections until women like these demanded voting rights during the Women's Suffrage Movement in the early 20th century. |
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These blacks were kept from voting in primary elections for years.
Even after this, some states allowed a "poll tax" to be assessed from voters
before they could vote. Read this explanation on Poll Tax found in World
Book Students Online:
A poll tax is a tax levied equally on all the citizens of a community. The amount of the tax is the same for a poor person as it is for a rich one. The term poll tax comes from the old English word poll, which means head. Many people refer to it as a head tax. A poll tax is sometimes called a capitation tax, from the Latin word caput, meaning head. Some people object to poll taxes because they feel taxes should be based only on income and property. However, many economists favor poll taxes because they believe that such taxes do not lessen a person's incentive to earn more money. The United States has never levied a national poll tax. But in the past, laws in several states required that a citizen who did not pay the poll tax could not vote. Amendment 24 to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1964, made it illegal for a state to use payment of taxes as a voting requirement in national elections. In 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States declared poll taxes unconstitutional if they are used as a requirement for voting in state and local elections. The court held that such taxes violated the equal protection of the law guaranteed by Amendment 14 to the United States Constitution.
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The votes in some counties in the state of Florida in 2000 were thrown out because of voting errors. The voting results in Florida ultimately decided whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would become the next president. |
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Two years before this day, these Florida voters may have had their ballots thrown out. Broward County threw out thousands of votes from heavily Democratic areas. Poorly educated voters in these areas of the county may have been confused and voted more than once on the same ballot. The outrage of the nation over the voting irregularities in Florida in 2000 sparked an intense national focus on finding better and simpler ways to have voters cast their ballot. |
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The American Presidency |
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PBS: Election of 2008 |
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PBS Your Prediction Map |
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The photos above come from the AP Accunet Multimedia Archive. For a free trial, visit http://ap.accuweather.com/ |
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