What does the Constitution say about voting?

0:04The same truth is that the original Constitution, before there were amendments, said almost nothing about voting or voting rights. The framers in developing the Constitution chose in effect to leave the matter to the states about who would have the right to vote and who could exercise the franchise, who would not be permitted to vote. By doing that, they separated citizenship from the right to vote.

0:32The only mention in the original Constitution in 1787 of voting was it said that if you had the right to vote in the most numerous branch, usually the lower House of each state legislature, then you would have the right to vote for the US House of Representatives. There's a linkage between state and federal voting rights for the House of Representatives, it was presumed that many people would not have the right to vote. At the time that this was written, there were property requirements, tax paying requirements, gender requirements, racial requirements. It was presumed that not everybody would have the right to vote. The framers left the matter to the states, as far as we can tell, largely because each of the 13 former colonies already had a tradition of elections and already had its own set of voting requirements. In some cases it was property requirements,

1:31in some cases, it was a dollar amount. The framers were afraid that if they tried to impose any individual national standard, then some states might get upset and it might jeopardize ratification of the Constitution. They basically punted and said, states, do as you wish, the legacy of that punting has been with us for 230 years.