Ballot box from Piscataway, New Jersey, year unknown.

This 1839 New Jersey democratic ticket was found as a bookmark in a circa 1825 "The Publications of the American Tract Society."

Photograph from Bridgeton Pioneer featuring Eva Ward, a British suffragist who became active in New Jersey’s efforts for suffrage, June 3, 1915.

The image features June Sicknick with her mother Edna Keller Sicknick. The carriage with the slogans “Future President” and “Votes for Women” was decorated for the baby parade held on September 25, 1920, as part of the celebration for South River’s 200th anniversary. June was born on November 19, 1919. While she didn't make it to president, she did go on to graduate from the New Jersey College for Women and become a technical librarian.

Program for the Women’s Political Union’s Votes for Women Ball, 1914.

Advertisement by the Women’s Political Union to gain support for the women’s suffrage movement, 1913.

New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association broadside "New Jersey Churches for Women Suffrage," 1915.

Letter from Lillian Feickert to Florence P. Eagleton, September 19, 1918.

Broadside, "The Woman's Reason," Women's Political Union of New Jersey, Newark, NJ.

Postcard, Soldiers Club Conducted by New Jersey Women [sic] Suffrage Association, Wrightstown, NJ, ca. 1918.

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In the most general sense, political scientists understand a free and fair election to be one in which voters have the right to choose their candidate or party without fear or intimidation, where all political parties have the right to campaign and communicate freely to voters, and where every vote is tallied. 

Not all Americans have had access to free and fair elections. At the time of the founding of the United States, most states restricted suffrage to white property-holding men, and it was not until 1856 that property qualifications were eliminated in all states. In 1870, the 15th Amendment’s passage prohibited federal and state governments from denying the right to vote to male citizens based on race. Wyoming became the first U.S. state to grant women the right to vote in 1890, but it took until 1920 for all American women to gain the right to vote and, for Black women, this right applied more in theory than in practice. In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act made Indigenous Americans citizens, but many state-level discriminatory policies still left them unable to vote. The 1965 Voting Rights Act did away with poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. However, voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and the targeted removal of voters from voting rolls have led many scholars to argue that fair elections still remain a goal rather than a reality.      

Separate from these government-backed exclusions, the history of voting in the United States has also been marked by more informal, yet equally pernicious, attempts to deny individuals their vote. Until the twentieth century, voting took place in taverns, grocery stores, and other private establishments, where anonymity could not be guaranteed and coercion was often rife. “Cooping” involved drugging and kidnapping voters to get them to cast their ballot for a certain party. Gangs engaged in brawls to block opposing voters from accessing polls. Employers used subtle and explicit forms of pressure—a practice that continues today—to coerce workers into voting for certain candidates.  

This section explores how different interests have tried to restrict the vote and how voters have responded in fighting for their rights.