What is "the poll tax"?

[sakabatou]

Need info

[Der Blaue Engel]

1. Requiring state ID, such as driver's license, in order to vote

which requires paying for ID

Edited to add: in order to vote

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Originally, back in the day, it was a way to keep blacks out of the voting

booths.


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[bluestateguy]

3. A small fee for voting

Declared unconstitutional at the federal level in 1915, outlawed in all elections by the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

[wuushew]

5. Any bets wether Bush extends the Voting Rights Act in 2007?

my gut says no.

[sakabatou]

12. Heard on the Majority Report

that the gov may reinstate the tax. Or maybe I wasn't wasn't listening right.

[montieg]

4. A fee

usually $10-30 that was required by many Southern States in the early part of the twentieth century--up into the '50's-- in order to be allowed to vote. Basic premise was that VAST majority of voters of color were unable to afford it so their vote was suppressed.

[valerief]

7. I'd pay it as long as we had paper ballots and Diebold etal

were nowhere near elections.

[China_cat]

11. I was paying it in the 60's in PA.

[shoelace414]

6. it was a tax everyone had to pay

and if you didn't pay it, you coudn;t vote.. it wasn't a "tax to vote" per say, it was a tax that had to be paid (and sometimes it was refinded) but if you didn't pay it you couldn't vote.

It was really a tax you had to pay to vote, but officaally it was just a tax, that if you didn't pay it you couldn't vote.

[shoelace414]

8. I wrote a LTTE about it, but they didn't publish it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x10658

if anyone wantz, they can send it to any paper they want.

[Puzzler]

9. A poll tax...

... is essentially a nation-wide flat tax on everyone. This is what Margaret Thatcher tried in the UK (in her last term), and it's what ultimately brought her down.

This type of taxation is grossly unfair, because money-wise it means nothing to the wealthy and a lot to the poor.


-P

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. And to make that clear

that 'flat tax' was not what people are now calling a 'flat income tax' - ie where there's only one rate of tax on people's income. Thatcher's tax was one fee, eg £500, that everyone had to pay, to finance city and county councils (the councils didn't get a choice whether to implement it or not, they just got the set the amount for their area). Those on state benefits got a discount, but the only adults who didn't have to pay at all were monks and nuns who had taken a vow of poverty and who never had any money at all.

Not only was Thatcher brought down by that tax; the last time it had been tried in England in the 14th century, it resulted in the Peasant's Revolt.

[Inland]

10. Poll tax means a head tax, a flat fee per capita.

In the US, a poll tax was required to be paid prior to voting in some areas. It was a means to prevent the poor from voting, as the poorest would never be able to pay it.

In the postwar South, poll taxes were used to prevent blacks from voting, as evidence showed that only blacks were challeged at the polling place for not paying the tax.

[PowerToThePeople]

13. The cash I give the ladies of the night? J/k....

[sakabatou]

14. :: rimshot ::

[Geoff R. Casavant]

15. US Const

Amendment 24 prohibits poll taxes for Federal elections.

[mtnester]

16. It was what happened in Ohio in November 2004

or something very similar anyway

:sarcasm:

[Lethe]

18. Thoreau refused to pay it!! Everybody read Civil Disobedience!

Refusing to pay the "Poll Tax" is what landed Henry Thoreau in jail. Emerson bailed him out eventually. He explains why he refused to pay it in his book Civil Disobedience. (he opposed the war with Mexico) This is a great read, and very relevent to todays times. Everywhere you see "Mexican War", substitute "Iraq War."

[newyawker99]

19. Hi ikhor!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[MaineDem]

20. And Georgia is trying to reinstate it

They are requiring ID to vote. Those withot a driving license are required to get a state ID at the cost of $20. In effect, this is a poll tax.

There was an OpEd in the NY Times yesterday about this by Yvonne Gates, the Chair of the DNC's Black Caucus.