Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Subsequent litigation related to potential discriminatory effects of voter registration requirements has generally been based on application of this clause.
[1]Southern states had adopted the poll tax as a requirement for voting as part of a series of laws in the late 19th century intended to exclude black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the Fifteenth Amendment.
Notably this affected both African Americans and poor white voters, some of whom had voted with Populist and Fusionist candidates in the late 19th century, temporarily disturbing Democratic rule.
By 1902, all eleven states of the former Confederacy had enacted a poll tax, many within new constitutions that contained other provisions as barriers to voter registration, such as literacy or comprehension tests administered subjectively by white workers.
The poll tax was used together with other devices such as grandfather clauses and the "white primary" designed to exclude blacks, as well as threats and acts of violence.
A 1939 bill to abolish the poll tax in federal elections was tied up by the Southern Bloc, lawmakers whose long tenure in office from a one-party region gave them seniority and command of numerous important committee chairmanships.
It came closest to passage during World War II, when opponents framed abolition as a means to help overseas soldiers vote.
However, after learning that the U.S. Supreme Court decision Smith v. Allwright (1944) banned the use of "white primary", the Southern block refused to approve abolition of the poll tax.
Southern politicians tried to re-frame the debate as a constitutional issue, but private correspondence indicates that black disenfranchisement was still the true concern.
He considered the constitutional amendment the best way to avoid a filibuster, as the claim that federal abolition of the poll tax was unconstitutional would be moot.
Holland had opposed most civil rights legislation during his career,[13] and his support helped splinter monolithic Southern opposition to the amendment.
[14] Ratification of the amendment was relatively quick, taking slightly more than a year; it was rapidly ratified by state legislatures across the country from August 1962 to January 1964.
Federal district courts in Alabama and Texas, respectively, struck down these states' poll taxes less than two months before the Harper ruling was issued.
In lieu of paying the poll tax, a prospective voter could file paperwork to gain a certificate establishing a place of residence in Virginia.
It declared that for federal elections, "the poll tax is abolished absolutely as a prerequisite to voting, and no equivalent or milder substitute may be imposed.
"[23] While not directly related to the Twenty-fourth Amendment, the Harper case held that the poll tax was unconstitutional at every level, not just for federal elections.
As such, issues related to whether burdens on voting are equivalent to poll taxes in discriminatory effect have usually been litigated on Equal Protection grounds since.
