Which amendment prohibited the poll tax in national elections?

Which amendment prohibited the poll tax in national elections?

• A. First
• B. Second
• C. Twenty-Fourth
• D. Fifteenth

Answer: (C)

Poll taxes were a way to bar people from voting by making their participation depend on paying money, which especially affected low-income citizens and many Black voters in the South. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1962, specifically prohibits requiring a poll tax to vote in national (federal) elections, ensuring that money can’t be used to block participation in those elections. This change strengthened voting rights at the federal level. Later, the Supreme Court extended the idea to state elections as well, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), ruling that poll taxes violate equal protection. The other amendments address different rights—First Amendment covers freedoms like speech and religion, Second covers bearing arms, and Fifteenth prohibits denying the vote based on race—but none of them target poll taxes in federal elections.

Poll taxes were a way to bar people from voting by making their participation depend on paying money, which especially affected low-income citizens and many Black voters in the South. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1962, specifically prohibits requiring a poll tax to vote in national (federal) elections, ensuring that money can’t be used to block participation in those elections. This change strengthened voting rights at the federal level. Later, the Supreme Court extended the idea to state elections as well, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), ruling that poll taxes violate equal protection. The other amendments address different rights—First Amendment covers freedoms like speech and religion, Second covers bearing arms, and Fifteenth prohibits denying the vote based on race—but none of them target poll taxes in federal elections.