Darren Lawrence, age 16, of Willingboro, N.J., for her question:
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE EARLY ELECTORAL REFORMS?
Electoral reforms are the actions taken to eliminate undemocratic, dishonest and corrupt practices in the conduct of public elections. Reform is usually effected by passing laws that contain provisions for eliminating the problems.
After the establishment of the United States, the first significant state legislation against electoral frauds was enacted in 1890 by New York State. It listed the amounts that candidates for various offices might legally spend and required candidates to file itemized accounts of campaign expenditures.
About 1909, Massachusetts forbade the practice of influencing voters with offers of employment and appointments to office, publication of unsigned political advertisements, subsidizing of newspapers to support candidates, contributions by certain corporations to political parties and payment by political committees of fees for prospective voters.
Other states also enacted similar electoral reform laws.
A federal law enacted in 1925 repealed all previous federal election laws and provided that treasurers of political committees, operating in two or more states, had to file with the clerk of the House of Representatives sworn statements containing the names and addresses of all contributors of $100 or more, the names and addresses of all persons receiving $10 or more from the moneys collected by the committees and the purpose for which the payments were made.
A drastic and far reaching measure, known as the Hatch Act, was passed by Congress in 1939 and amended in 1940. Designed to discourage the spoils system of political patronage in favor of a genuine merit system for selecting and training employees in the Civil Service, the Hatch Act prohibits certain types of political activity on the part of federal employees. Violation of provisions of the Hatch Act was made punishable by loss of position.
Electoral practices aimed at preventing blacks from exercising their legal right to vote was the particular focus of electoral reform in the 1950s and 1960s.
The most sweeping reforms were embodied in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This law provided for automatic suspension of literacy tests and other voter qualification devices if they were applied in a discriminatory way; gave federal voting examiners the authority to register voters in areas not meeting certain voter participation requirements; authorized the U.S. attorney general to investigate the validity of state poll taxes; placed restrictions on new state voting laws; and made interference with voting rights conferred by law a criminal offense.
Supplementing these laws was the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1964, prohibiting poll taxes as a qualification for voting in federal elections.
The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, provided that citizens 18 years of age or older could not be denied the franchise "on account of age."