poll tax

     A poll tax was a tax a citizen had to pay just to vote. This is now illegal, by the 24th amendment to the US Constitution. Citizenship tests as a voting requirement are also illegal. Either an American was born in this country, and can be assumed to have been educated in our public schools or an approved substitute (private school), or an American has become a citizen by residing here for at least five years and passing a citizenship test. The only time a citizenship test is given in the United States is when a foreign born person (an immigrant) wants to become a citizen, which he or she would have to do to be able to vote--so no citizenship tests just for voting are necessary. The citizenship tests were made illegal because they had been used unfairly, to keep some people from voting. This happened in parts of the American South, where one person's citizenship test might merely ask him to name the president, and another person might be asked to recite the US Constitution. Citizenship tests were particularly used in some parts of the South to keep blacks from voting.