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VoteRights

United States

Americas · us

Federal presidential republic; president elected via the Electoral College; elections administered state-by-state.

Profile last reviewed July 23, 2026

The United States wrote no affirmative national right to vote into its original constitution: who could vote was left to the states, and the franchise has widened since mainly through constitutional amendment and federal statute rather than a single founding guarantee. Race-based bars fell formally in 1870 but only became real after 1965; women were enfranchised nationally in 1920 and 18-year-olds in 1971. Elections are still run locally rather than by any national authority, which is why ballots, identification rules and audits differ from one state to the next.

How voting works today

Voting age
18 and over
Voter registration
Voter-initiated
Identification
Varies by region
Compulsory voting
No
Postal voting
Varies by region
Early voting
Varies by region
Online voting
Not available
Voting from abroad
Available to all

Registration is the voter's own responsibility in most states, though a growing number now register eligible citizens automatically from motor-vehicle records. Identification requirements, postal-ballot eligibility and early-voting periods are set state by state and differ widely. Citizens living abroad and uniformed service members vote absentee under federal law.

How the franchise changed

Every entry records a change in who could vote, or how — expansions, restrictions and procedural reforms alike.

  1. 1870Expansion

    The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the vote on grounds of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.

  2. 1890Restriction

    Southern states adopted literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses and white primaries that stripped the vote from most Black citizens for the next seventy years — without ever naming race in the statute.

  3. 1920Expansion

    The Nineteenth Amendment prohibited denying the vote on account of sex, enfranchising women nationwide.

  4. 1924Expansion

    The Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States, though several states went on barring them from the ballot into the 1940s and 1950s.

  5. 1964Expansion

    The Twenty-fourth Amendment abolished the poll tax as a condition of voting in federal elections.

  6. 1965Expansion

    The Voting Rights Act suspended literacy tests and required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to clear new voting rules with the federal government before using them.

  7. 1971Expansion

    The Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.

  8. 1993Expansion

    The National Voter Registration Act required states to offer voter registration at motor-vehicle agencies and by mail.

  9. 2002Reform

    The Help America Vote Act, passed after the disputed 2000 count, set minimum standards for voting systems and created the provisional ballot.

  10. 2013Restriction

    In Shelby County v. Holder the Supreme Court struck down the formula that decided which jurisdictions needed federal pre-clearance, ending that requirement in practice.

Safeguards on the count

Ballot type
Mixed
Post-election audit
Varies by region
Election administration
Mixed / decentralised
Domestic observers
Yes
International observers
Yes

Most jurisdictions now vote on paper ballots, or on machines that print a voter-verifiable paper record — which is what makes a recount or audit meaningful in the first place. Post-election checks range from risk-limiting audits in some states to none at all in others. Elections are administered by state and local officials rather than a national body, and OSCE/ODIHR has observed recent federal elections.

Worth knowing

  • There is no national election authority: US elections are run by roughly 10,000 state and local jurisdictions, each with its own ballots and procedures.
  • Wyoming Territory gave women the vote in 1869 — half a century before the Nineteenth Amendment did so nationally.

Elections in the database

People

Sources

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