What voting restriction required that your grandfather must have voted in order for a Black person to be eligible to vote?

• A. Poll Tax
• B. Literacy test
• C. Voter registration
• D. Grandfather clause

Answer: (D)

This policy hinges on a person's ancestor rather than their own actions, specifically tying voting eligibility to whether their grandfather could vote before a certain point in history. The Grandfather Clause was designed to let whites vote if their grandfather had been eligible to vote before the Reconstruction era, effectively exempting them from new restrictions while keeping Black citizens—whose grandfathers were often enslaved and unable to vote—disenfranchised. Poll taxes and literacy tests targeted everyone but didn’t depend on family history, and voter registration is simply the process to sign up. So the described restriction is the Grandfather Clause.