"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."—Twenty-fourth Amendment

What was the effect of this amendment?

A. It stopped states from preventing former slaves and poor people from voting.

B. It stopped any state from disallowing women to vote in national elections.

C. It allowed any state to charge a fee to someone who wished to vote.

D. It allowed states to limit who could vote by age, gender, or race.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment prevented states from charging poll taxes in the primaries and federal elections. Poll taxes were an indirect way that many states used to continue restricting the vote of citizens who were former slaves or poor because they could not afford the poll tax and so they were much less likely to vote in the elections. This was upheld by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1937 that allowed Georgia to continue instituting a poll tax. The Twenty-fourth Amendment was instituted to address this power that states had to continue excluding voters. It was passed by Congress on August 27, 1962 and ratified January 23, 1964. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, extended this to state elections as well by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause in the case called Harper v. Virginia Board of Electors. It was no longer allowed to charge poll taxes in state elections either.