Disenfranchising Laws After Reconstruction

The Poll Tax and Voter Disenfranchisement in Arkansas Student Name Institution Course Professor Date The Poll Tax and Voter Disenfranchisement in Arkansas South states such as Arkansas used numerous legal instruments to prevent the political action of African Americans and poor white citizens following Reconstruction. The poll tax was one of the strongest ones that mandated citizens to pay a fee to be able to vote. This law was enacted in Arkansas under the Poll Tax Amendment of 1892 which required the men above twenty-one years to prove by showing evidence of payment of poll tax to exercise voting right. The voting tax was usually minimal as low as one dollar (Branam, 2010). That amount would be about $35-40 in modern times, which is a huge expense to the poor farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers who did not deal much with cash. This policy fundamentally redefined who would gain political influence and whose voices would be suppressed. The poll tax constituted both an economic and administrative limitation to voting. People were forced to pay the tax long before the election and keep the receipt to prove that they paid it. When the payment was missed, not even deliberately, this amounted to disenfr...