Poll Taxes in America and the Cost to Vote

What Is a Poll Tax

A poll tax is a flat fee a person must pay before being allowed to vote. Every voter owes the same amount no matter what they earn, so it weighs most on people with the least. Southern states used it for more than 70 years to shrink who could vote, and the country banned it in two steps, in 1964 and 1966.

Who the Poll Tax Kept From Voting

The poll tax arrived in the South in one wave, and 10 of the 11 states adopted it between 1889 and 1902. A federal court laid out the order in 1966: Florida first, then Mississippi (1890), Tennessee (1890), Arkansas (1892), South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1902) and Texas (1902), and Georgia last, in 1908. A 1952 staff report to the Texas Legislative Council, quoted by the Texas court, traced that state’s tax to three aims: cleaning up vote-buying, keeping Black citizens from voting, and shutting out the people who had formed the backbone of the Populist Party, which drew its main support from struggling farmers and labor.

Alabama’s delegates said what they meant to do. The journal of the state’s 1901 constitutional convention, as the 1966 court quoted it, states the convention’s aim as “our registered vow to disfranchise every Negro in the state and not a single white man.” Delegate Hood called the poll tax “the most important provision in this entire article” and explained why unpaid years were allowed to add up: “We want that poll tax to pile up so high that he will never be able to vote again” (United States v. Alabama).

The Alabama plan worked. For every 100 Black men who voted in 1900, about 3 were eligible to vote in 1903. The poll tax was one piece of that plan, alongside a literacy test and a property rule, so the drop measures the whole package.

Eligible to vote in 1903 Not among the 1903 eligible

Per 100 Black men who voted in 1900 (100,000 voted; 2,980 were eligible in 1903). Source: United States v. Alabama, 252 F. Supp. 95 (M.D. Ala. 1966).

White registration held up. In 1903, 191,492 white Alabamians were registered, and by 1908 the number had grown to 250,381, while Black registration was still 3,742. Poor white voters were hurt too. Encyclopedia Virginia says Virginia’s 1902 rules shut out most Black men and “about half of the white men who had voted” before (Encyclopedia Virginia). In Arkansas, the poll tax and a new election law together left 65,000 fewer voters in 1894 than in 1890 (Encyclopedia of Arkansas).

The tax still depressed turnout decades later. When Congress took up the 1965 Voting Rights Act, it had evidence that four of the six states with the lowest turnout in the 1964 election charged a poll tax, according to the federal court that struck down Texas’s tax (United States v. Texas).

What the Poll Tax Cost a Voter

A dollar or two sounds small, but it was due months before anyone knew who was running, and it bought nothing but the right to vote. Texas collected its tax between October 1 and January 31, nine months before a November election (United States v. Texas). Virginia made voters show they had paid for each of the three years before an election (Encyclopedia Virginia).

Those figures are per person. A married couple in Virginia paid twice, and Alabama’s rule used to be far worse. Until a December 28, 1953 amendment capped it at two years, the Alabama tax kept piling up for every year a person between 21 and 45 skipped, which was the delegates’ stated plan (United States v. Alabama).

How the Last Poll Taxes Ended

Getting rid of the poll tax took three decades of bills, one amendment and one Supreme Court ruling. The Court upheld Georgia’s tax in 1937. The House passed an anti-poll-tax bill in 1943 that died in the Senate. Congress sent the 24th Amendment to the states in 1962, and it was ratified in 1964. The Court struck down Virginia’s first substitute for the tax in 1965, and the tax itself in 1966.

1. 1937 Court upholds poll taxes
2. 1943 House passes a ban
3. 1962 Congress passes the 24th Amendment
4. 1964 Federal-election poll taxes banned
5. 1965 Virginia's workaround struck down
6. 1966 State-election poll taxes end

From Breedlove to Harper, 1937-1966: 1937: Court upholds poll taxes (Breedlove v. Suttles upholds Georgia's $1 tax.). 1943: House passes a ban (265 to 110; it dies in the Senate.). 1962: Congress passes the 24th Amendment (The House votes 295 to 86 on August 27.). 1964: Federal-election poll taxes banned (South Dakota's vote ratifies the 24th Amendment on January 23.). 1965: Virginia's workaround struck down (Harman v. Forssenius rejects a certificate voters had to file instead of paying.). 1966: State-election poll taxes end (Harper v. Virginia, 6 to 3, on March 24.).

1937: In Breedlove v. Suttles, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s $1 poll tax, which had been “attacked on every possible constitutional ground,” as the 1966 Alabama court later put it (United States v. Alabama).

1943: The House passed an anti-poll-tax bill 265 to 110 after Representative Vito Marcantonio forced it to the floor. It died in the Senate under the threat of a filibuster (House Historian).

1962: On August 27, the House passed the 24th Amendment 295 to 86. Five states still charged the tax: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas (House Historian).

1964: South Dakota ratified the amendment on January 23, and poll taxes ended in elections for president and Congress.

1965: Virginia let voters skip the tax in federal elections only if they filed a certificate of residence six months ahead. In Harman v. Forssenius, the Court called it “plainly a cumbersome procedure” and struck it down under the new amendment (Harman v. Forssenius).

1966: In Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, Justice William O. Douglas wrote for a 6-3 Court that “voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax.” The ruling overruled Breedlove and ended poll taxes in state and local elections (Cornell LII).

The last five poll-tax states kept the tax for between 64 and 76 years. The chart runs each bar from the year the state adopted its tax to the day it fell. Texas, Alabama and Virginia lost theirs between February 9 and March 24, 1966, and Mississippi’s fell 15 days after Harper.

1. Mississippi: Federal court in Jackson, after Harper 1890–1966
2. Arkansas: Voters approved a state amendment replacing it with registration 1892–1964
3. Alabama: United States v. Alabama, federal court in Montgomery 1901–1966
4. Virginia: Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, Supreme Court 1902–1966
5. Texas: United States v. Texas, federal court in Austin 1902–1966

1900192019401960

How long the last five poll-tax states kept the tax

Item	Began	Ended	Length
Mississippi: Federal court in Jackson, after Harper	1890	April 8, 1966	76 years
Arkansas: Voters approved a state amendment replacing it with registration	1892	November 3, 1964	72 years
Alabama: United States v. Alabama, federal court in Montgomery	1901	March 3, 1966	65 years
Virginia: Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, Supreme Court	1902	March 24, 1966	64 years
Texas: United States v. Texas, federal court in Austin	1902	February 9, 1966	64 years

Bars run from the year each state made the poll tax a voting requirement to the day it ended. Sources: United States v. Texas (1966) for adoption years; Encyclopedia of Arkansas; United States v. Texas, United States v. Alabama, Harper v. Virginia (1966); People's World for Mississippi's April 8, 1966 ruling.

Evelyn Butts filed her suit in federal court in November 1963. Annie Harper and three other Fairfax County residents filed theirs the next March, and the Supreme Court decided the cases together under Harper’s name (Encyclopedia Virginia).

The Modern Poll Tax Debate Over Fees and IDs

No state charges a fee to vote, but the argument over what counts as a poll tax is back in court. Three kinds of cost come up again and again: substitutes for the tax, fees to get the ID a state requires, and money owed from a criminal sentence. Courts have drawn the line narrowly, and the judges who disagreed have said so in strong terms.

Voter ID laws are the most common version of the argument. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board in 2008, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that because Indiana’s ID cards “are also free,” for most voters, a trip to the motor vehicle office “surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote” (Cornell LII). Dissenting, Justice David Souter wrote that Indiana counties charged $3 to $12 for a birth certificate, and called the law’s costs “uncomfortably close to the outright $1.50 fee we struck down 42 years ago” (Cornell LII).

Florida’s fines-and-fees fight is the sharpest current test. In 2018, 64.55% of Florida voters approved Amendment 4, restoring the vote to most people with felony convictions once they finish “all terms of sentence.” The legislature’s Senate Bill 7066 defined those terms to include every fine, fee and restitution order. On September 11, 2020, the full Eleventh Circuit upheld that rule 6 to 4. Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that court fees and costs “are part of the State’s punishment for a crime. They are not taxes.” Judge Adalberto Jordan’s dissent opened with the American Bar Association’s guideline that failing to pay court debt “should never result in the deprivation of fundamental rights, including the right to vote” (Jones v. Governor of Florida).

Supporters of these rules say they ask voters to prove who they are or to finish a sentence, not to pay for the ballot itself, and the courts have agreed so far. Critics say that when the vote depends on money, the label on the charge matters less than who can pay it. The voter suppression explainer weighs what the research shows about ID laws and turnout.

What the Poll Tax Ban Does Not Cover

• It does not make every cost of voting unconstitutional. Courts ask whether the cost is a tax on voting itself. Travel, time off work and document fees have not been treated that way.
• The 24th Amendment alone covers only federal elections. State and local elections are protected by Harper, which rests on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
• It does not settle voting rights after a felony conviction. States decide those rules, and the cash bail explainer and mass incarceration explainer show how many people court debt now reaches.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the purpose of the poll tax?
Supporters said it kept elections clean, and the money went to public schools. The record shows another purpose: at Alabama’s 1901 convention, delegates said openly they meant to keep Black men from voting, and a federal court in 1966 held Alabama’s tax invalid “from its inception” for that reason.

Which amendment got rid of poll taxes?
The 24th Amendment, ratified January 23, 1964, banned poll taxes in federal elections. It did not reach state and local elections. The Supreme Court ended those in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections on March 24, 1966, under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Was the poll tax only for Black voters?
No. It applied to every voter who was not exempt, and it kept many poor white voters from the polls too; a federal court found Texas adopted it partly to shut out poor white supporters of the Populist Party. But it came in the same Southern wave of laws aimed at Black voters, it was paired with literacy tests and property rules, and a federal court found the necessary effect of Alabama’s tax was to disfranchise Black voters.

Is there a poll tax today?
No state may charge a fee to vote. The open question is whether other costs work like one. The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008 partly because the ID card itself is free, and a federal appeals court held in 2020 that the court fees Florida requires before a felony conviction stops blocking the vote are punishment, not a tax.

What You Can Do

1. Check what your state requires you to show at the polls, and get it well before the deadline. Many states give ID cards free; ask for the free voting ID by name. The voter registration explainer links every state’s rules.

2. If you have a felony conviction, find out whether you can vote now. Rules differ by state, and many people are eligible without knowing it. The Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote tool walks through each state.

3. Help someone get the ID they need. VoteRiders helps voters find out what their state requires and get the documents, free.

4. Tell your state legislators where you stand on court debt and voting. Ask whether your state requires full payment of fines and fees before a person with a conviction can vote, and whether it will waive them for people who cannot pay. Our letter-writing guide shows how to write a message an office will read.