Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections

1966-03-28

Headline: Court strikes down state poll tax, ruling that conditioning the right to vote on paying a fee violates equal protection and removes a financial barrier to voting for low-income residents.

Holding: The Court held that a State violates the Equal Protection Clause when it conditions the right to vote on payment of a poll tax or fee because wealth or payment is irrelevant to voter qualifications and cannot bar the ballot.

Real World Impact:

Bars states from conditioning state voting on payment of a tax or fee.
Invalidates Virginia’s poll tax as a voting requirement.
Removes a financial barrier for poorer voters in affected states.

Topics: voting rights, poll tax, equal protection, voter access, state elections

Summary

Background

A group of Virginia residents sued to declare the State’s poll tax unconstitutional. Virginia’s Constitution required an annual poll tax up to $1.50, with $1 for schools and the rest to counties, and treated nonpayment as a bar to registering or voting unless the tax had been paid at specified times in prior years. A three-judge federal district court dismissed the challenge because it felt bound by the Court’s earlier decision in Breedlove v. Suttles.

Reasoning

The central question was whether making payment of a tax a condition to vote is allowed under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The majority held that once a State grants the franchise, it may not set voter qualifications that discriminate on irrelevant grounds. The Court explained that wealth or payment of a fee has no relation to a person’s fitness to vote, and that conditioning voting on affluence creates an “invidious” discrimination. To the extent Breedlove had treated the poll tax as a permissible prerequisite to voting, the Court overruled that part and reversed the lower court. The practical result: the Virginia poll tax could not be used to deny qualified citizens the ballot.

Real world impact

The decision removes the poll tax as a voting qualification in Virginia and undercuts similar requirements in other States that still used poll taxes. The opinion notes only a handful of States then conditioned voting on such a tax. The ruling is a final judgment by the Court reversing the dismissal and vindicating the challengers’ claim.

Dissents or concurrances

Justices Black and Harlan (joined by Justice Stewart) dissented, arguing the Court should have left Breedlove intact, applied a more deferential, rational-basis review, and left such policy changes to legislatures or the amendment process.