Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections

by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway

With the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, restricting voting rights on the basis of race was unconstitutional. Initially, there was an encouraging number of black Americans being elected to public office. However, southern states soon enacted Jim Crow laws, and black voters consequently faced repugnant measures such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and outright intimidation when they tried to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally killed off Jim Crow laws, but earlier anti-corruption reforms such as the removal of partisan interests from controlling the voting process also helped rectify these racial injustices. There was a period after secret ballots were introduced where some questioned whether they were fair because they necessitated reading and writing at a time when much of the black population was illiterate, having been denied an education. However, reformers argued that the introduction of the secret ballot would prevent black voters from being publicly intimidated,33 and they were almost certainly right about that in the long term.