Almost every state has been considered some type of revision of its voting laws to cut down on voter fraud. Some states would like to require a type of identification (such as showing a passport or driver’s license). What I didn’t realize that the term “grandfather clause” received its origins from voting laws.

Grandfather clause means that you have the right to do something even though the law or rule has changed. For instance, when I was going to college, they changed the classes that you needed to take to graduate when I was a Junior. This did not mean that I had to go back and take a bunch of new classes. No, I was grandfathered in. I was able to continue on the previous track of classes until I graduated.

The term originated in the south. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some southern states did not want blacks voting in the election. They devised laws that either required charging a tax before you could vote, to having to be literate. What they realized was that this would also affect many whites as well. They made this laws with the provision that if your grandfather had the right the vote, you would not be subject to the new laws. It wasn’t until 1965, when President Johnson signed the Voting Right Acts that this laws were repealed.