Amendments to the Constitution 11-27
Amendment XXIV · Ratified January 23, 1964
Prohibits poll taxes in federal elections.
Amendment XXIV · Ratified January 23, 1964
Court decisions citing this, by year.The marker is when it took effect. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Passed by Congress August 27, 1962. Ratified January 23, 1964.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), is an overturned United States Supreme Court decision which upheld the constitutionality of requiring the payment of a poll tax in order to vote in state elections.
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eleven southern states established poll taxes as part of their disenfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites.
Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules, including the use of white primaries.
Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U.S. 528 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that Virginia's partial elimination of the poll tax violated the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Virginia attempted to avoid the effect of the 24th Amendment by creating an "escape clause" to the poll tax.