The Grandfather Clause allowed exemptions from voting restrictions if what condition was met?

• A. An ancestor had voted before 1867
• B. You owned land
• C. You could read
• D. You paid a poll tax

Answer: (A)

Understanding how the Grandfather Clause used ancestry to bypass voting restrictions. It stated that if your grandfather had the right to vote before a certain date (often before 1867), you could vote even if you didn’t meet literacy, property, or poll-tax requirements. This gave an advantage to white voters whose ancestors were eligible to vote before the Civil War, while many Black citizens’ ancestors were enslaved and could not vote before that date, effectively suppressing their suffrage. Other options like literacy tests, land ownership, or poll taxes were the kinds of barriers the clause aimed to circumvent for certain people, not criteria used to determine eligibility in general.