24th Amendment
Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Ratified January 23, 1964
Verbatim
Exact text as ratified.
Section 1. 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 any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Plain English
A translation that drops archaic words but keeps the meaning, including the parts courts still argue about.
Section 1. The right of U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections — for President, Vice President, presidential electors, U.S. Senators, or U.S. Representatives — cannot be denied or limited by the federal government or any state because of failure to pay a poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. Congress has the power to enforce this amendment by passing appropriate laws.
What this means for you
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment bans poll taxes in federal elections. A poll tax is a fee charged for the right to vote.
The amendment applies only to federal elections. State elections were addressed two years later in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), in which the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes in state elections violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Together, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Harper ruling eliminated poll taxes at all levels of U.S. government.
The amendment does not prohibit other costs associated with voting, such as the cost of obtaining a required ID, transportation to a polling place, or time off work. Whether such costs amount to an unconstitutional burden on voting rights has been litigated under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act, but is not directly addressed by the Twenty-Fourth.
About
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment was ratified on January 23, 1964. It was passed during the broader civil rights movement of the early 1960s and was specifically aimed at poll taxes used in Southern states to disenfranchise Black voters.
Five Southern states — Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia — still had poll taxes in federal elections at the time of ratification. The amendment ended these immediately for federal elections.
Two years after ratification, the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966) that poll taxes in state elections also violated the Constitution under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Together, the amendment and the Harper ruling closed off poll taxes as a tool of voter suppression.
Modern debates about voting costs (such as required photo ID with associated fees) sometimes refer back to the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, but courts have generally analyzed such cases under different constitutional provisions.