Poll Tax

How Do Poll Taxes Work? Definition and Illustrations 

 

No matter their wealth or income, eligible voters must pay a set sum called a poll tax in order to cast a ballot. In the United States, the poll tax has primarily been discussed in relation to its usage as a tool for voter suppression that was initially targeted at Black Americans, particularly in Southern states. 

 

•    In order to cast a ballot, eligible voters had to pay a set sum known as a poll tax.

 

•    The original purpose of poll taxes was to raise money for the government without directly limiting the ability to vote.

 

•    The poll tax was first employed in the United States during Reconstruction to keep Black Americans from voting, particularly in states in the South. 

 

•    The United States Constitution's Twenty-fourth Amendment, which was ratified in 1964, ruled the poll tax invalid during federal elections.

 

•    The states were not permitted to impose a poll tax as a requirement for casting a ballot in state and municipal elections, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1966.

 

Poll taxes were primarily revenue-raising tactics unrelated to limiting the ability to vote, even though they were present in the United States long before the Civil War. Among the colonies that eventually became the original 13 states of the United States, poll taxes had been a significant source of funding for the government. Between one-third and fifty percent of all taxes collected in colonial Massachusetts were collected through poll taxes. 

 

Everyone was supposed to pay taxes, including those who did not earn enough money or had sufficient assets to be liable to income and property taxes. The government would get more money if everyone paid the tax. Several northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, as well as the former Confederate States of America, enacted poll taxes for financial reasons. 

 

Property taxes became a larger portion of government revenues when land values increased as a result of the settlement of the American West. Some developing western states decided that poll tax restrictions were no longer necessary. 

 

Per-head poll taxes, which derive from an ancient phrase for "head" or "top of the head," were significant sources of income for numerous governments from Biblical times until the 19th century.

 

According to Exodus, every man over the age of twenty had to pay a poll tax of one-half of a shekel. Israel's demand for income increased as the country matured. King Solomon reportedly enlisted 30,000 men from all of Israel to work as loggers in Lebanon, according to the Book of I Kings. The country implemented an income tax paid in flour, meal, cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, as well as a per-capita "poll tax." In the end, oppressive taxes caused the kingdom to split into Israel and Judea in 880 BCE.

 

According to Islamic law, the Zakat al-Fitr is a required tax that every Muslim must pay close to the conclusion of each Ramadan. Muslims who live in extreme poverty are exempt. It is equivalent to 2 kg of wheat, barley, or money. The needy are to receive zakat al-Fitr. In addition, as a condition of their legal resident status, non-Muslims who live permanently in a Muslim state must pay the jizya, a poll tax mandated by Islamic law. 

 

The governments of John of Gaunt in the 14th century, King Charles II in the 17th century, and Margaret Thatcher in the 20th century all imposed poll taxes in the United Kingdom. The most infamous poll tax in English history was imposed in 1380 by the youthful King Richard II and was a major factor in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

 

Poll taxes have been connected to uprisings like the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England and the 1906 Bambatha Rebellion against colonial government in South Africa because they are by their very nature highly regressive levies, unpopular, and highly controversial. 

 

In the United States, the agricultural unrest of the 1880s and 1890s, which culminated in the establishment of the Populist Party in the Western and Southern states, is linked to the origin of the poll tax as well as the dispute surrounding it. The only real opposition the Democrats had faced since the conclusion of Reconstruction came from the populists, who spoke for low-income farmers. 

 

Both parties became aware of the necessity of bringing Black people back into politics and competing for their support as a result of the competition. As the Democrats overcame the Populists, they altered or drafted new state constitutions with a variety of discriminatory disfranchisement provisions. Poor Black people and frequently poor White people who could not pay the poll tax were denied the right to vote when it became a requirement for voting.

 

The former Confederate states specifically repurposed the poll tax during the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era in the United States in order to prohibit Black Americans who had previously been enslaved from voting. Despite the fact that Black men received full citizenship and voting rights under the 14th and 15th Amendments, it was up to the individual states to define who was eligible to vote. 

 

Southern states swiftly took advantage of this legal gap, starting with Mississippi in 1890. Mississippi instituted a $2 poll tax and required early registration as part of its constitutional convention in 1890. The impact on the Black electorate was disastrous. Less than 9,000 Black residents registered to vote when the state's new constitution went into effect in 1892, compared to the approximately 87,000 Black citizens who did so in 1869, or about 97% of the eligible voting-age population.

 

All eleven of the former Confederate states levied some type of poll tax between 1890 and 1902 to prevent Black Americans from casting ballots. The fee, which ranged from $1 to $2, was unaffordable for the majority of Black sharecroppers because they were paid in crops rather than money. In addition to the expense, voter registration and tax collection offices were frequently situated in intimidating public places like courthouses and police stations.

 

Jim Crow laws were also passed by the southern states with the intention of stifling Black voting rights and strengthening racial segregation. Most of these states implemented literacy exams in addition to the poll tax, which required candidates for office to read and explain in writing various sections of the state constitution. If a person's father or grandfather had cast a ballot before to the abolition of slavery in 1865, they were eligible to vote without having to pay the poll tax or pass a literacy test, however, this restriction immediately disqualified all those who had previously been held as slaves. 

 

Together, the grandfather clause and the literacy tests effectively gave poorer White voters who couldn't afford the poll tax their right to vote back while significantly reducing the number of Black voters. In Southern states, poll taxes with various restrictions persisted far into the 20th century. In the years following World War I, some states eliminated the levy, while others kept it in place. The United States Constitution's Twenty-fourth Amendment, which was ratified in 1964, deemed the tax unlawful in federal elections. 

 

The 24th Amendment specifically states: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for president or vice president, for presidential or vice presidential electors, or for senator or representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."

 

The amendment was hailed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as a "triumph of liberty over restraint." It is a confirmation of people's rights, he remarked, which are firmly ingrained in the fabric of this country's history. Significant changes were brought about in the voting rights of Black Americans throughout the South by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The statute forbade the states from excluding Black Americans from voting through literacy tests and other means. 

 

Prior to this, only approximately 23% of Black citizens of voting age were registered nationally, however, by 1969 that percentage had increased to 61%. By ruling in the case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections in 1966 that states could not impose a poll tax as a requirement for casting a ballot in state and local elections, the U.S. Supreme Court went beyond the provisions of the Twenty-fourth Amendment. 

 

In the final four states that still maintained poll tax laws, beginning with Texas on February 9, federal courts ruled that they were unlawful in two months in the spring of 1966. Similar decisions were made shortly after in Virginia and Alabama. The last to go was Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equivalent to $18 today), which was ruled unlawful on April 8, 1966.