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Prior to 1807, did New Jersey grant some Black people, women and immigrants the right to vote?

Friday, April 16, 2021
By Gus Fisher
YES

New Jersey’s 1776 constitution extended the right to vote to “all free inhabitants of this State.” This included free Black people and women. The new state also enfranchised immigrants, making no mention of citizenship requirements. Eligibility to vote required being of age, owning property worth at least £50 (equivalent to about $11,000 today) and one year’s residence in the state.

Women were at least 7.7% of the state’s voters by 1807, according to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. But politically charged claims of voter fraud were raised against women, and eventually “women voting had become synonymous with voter fraud,” according to a paper in the Georgetown Journal of Gender & Law.

In 1807, New Jersey walked back its expansive approach and passed a law declaring that “no person shall vote [...] unless such person be a free, white, male citizen of this state.”

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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