Originally posted by CaptHowdy
Why is there any controversy at all on this topic. Elections are for American citizenry and by American citizens. Is the implication that socio-economically disadvantaged citizens or minority citizens are less likely to possess proper identification indicating their status? No one is trying to establish rules such as only land-owners may vote, or blacks get 3/5 of a vote. Who has a problem with presenting identification and proof of citizenship?

Just to be clear, blacks never had 3/5 of a vote. Before the Civil War amendments, blacks had no votes. However, they were counted toward the population for the purposes of figuring out how much representation in the House states would have. So ironically, it was the slave-owning southern states that wanted to count blacks as full people, while the northern non-slave-owning states did not want blacks to count towards the population at all. They compromised on counting blacks as 3/5 of a person, but that had nothing to do with blacks voting for anything. In fact, their 3/5 presence ensured that the south would have enough power to continue to enslave them.