Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Politics

Maine and Nebraska allocate two electoral votes to the statewide winner but allow each congressional district to award one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in their specific locality.

History of Now

Why Do Maine and Nebraska Split Their Electoral Votes?

Instead of a winner-take-all system, the states use the “congressional district method”

President Trump originally campaigned on the promise that the U.S. would soon back out of the agreement, and in 2017, he formally started the process.

As of This Morning, the U.S. Has Officially Withdrawn From the Paris Climate Agreement

The country is the first to leave the accord

Senator John F. Kennedy speaks to supporters at Chicago Stadium four days before the 1960 election.

Four Times the Results of a Presidential Election Were Contested

“Rigged” may not be the way to describe them, but there were definitely some shenanigans happening

Glass ballot boxes were used as a way to show voter transparency at the polls and became popular in the late 1800s.

A Glass Ballot Box Was the Answer to Voter Fraud in the 19th Century

This transparent approach let voters know that their ballots were counted

Five to ten percent of people will read an email, but 80 to 90 percent of people will read a text.

How the 2020 Presidential Race Became the ‘Texting Election’

Campaigns took full advantage of text-to-donate technology and peer-to-peer texting to engage voters this election cycle

Luisa Capetillo, left, was a labor organizer and one of Puerto Rico's foundational feminists. Right, women on Election Day in 1936, the first year all women on the island could vote.

Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico, Women Won the Vote in a Bittersweet Game of Colonial Politics

Puertorriqueñas’ fight for suffrage shaped by class, colonialism and racism—but even today, island residents cannot vote for president

Part of the Crow reservation is in Montana's Big Horn County, but the at-large election system meant that the first Crow county commissioner wasn't elected until 1986.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

To Make Native Votes Count, Janine Windy Boy Sued the Government

‘Windy Boy v. Big Horn County’ helped ensure the Crow and Northern Cheyenne were represented, but the long struggle for Native voting rights continues

American women wouldn't be able to sport 'I Voted' stickers if not for Susan B. Anthony.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

Why Women Bring Their ‘I Voted’ Stickers to Susan B. Anthony’s Grave

This year, visitors will find a clear plastic covering protecting the fragile marble headstone

Ostraca are rare artifacts of actual democratic procedures. They can reveal hidden bits of history that were omitted by ancient chroniclers and offer insight into voter behavior and preferences that would otherwise be lost.

Ancient Greeks Voted to Kick Politicians Out of Athens if Enough People Didn’t Like Them

Ballots that date more than two millennia old tell the story of ostracism

Shortly before the "Night of Terror," suffragists (including Lucy Burns, second from left) protested the treatment of Alice Paul, who was kept in solitary confinement in a D.C. prison.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

Radical Protests Propelled the Suffrage Movement. Here’s How a New Museum Captures That History

Located on the site of a former prison, the Lucy Burns Museum shines a light on the horrific treatment endured by the jailed suffragists

An oil-cloth cape worn by a young Republican during a late-night, torch-lit campaign march ahead of the 1880 presidential election.

When Young Americans Marched for Democracy Wearing Capes

In 1880, a new generation helped decide the closest popular vote in U.S. history

Donna Hayashi Smith, a curator, has been in charge of everything from borrowing famous paintings to handling a 19th-century menorah. Here, she holds a French porcelain vase from 1820.

Behind the Scenes With the White House Residence’s Long-Serving Staff

A former first lady salutes the long-serving workers who keep the nation’s foremost home running smoothly

A Virginia woman votes early in the 2020 general election.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

How Women Vote: Separating Myth From Reality

Suffragists said women voting would transform politics. Here’s how women have wielded the ballot in the past century, according to a political scientist

Old Supreme Court Chamber in the U.S. Capitol

History of Now

The History of ‘Stolen’ Supreme Court Seats

As the Trump administration seeks to fill a vacancy on the Court, a look back at the forgotten mid-19th century battles over the judiciary

The International Space Station in 2018, as photographed by crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft

How Cold War Politics Shaped the International Space Station

A brief history detailing how the United States and Russia led the effort to create the technical marvel

Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer's searing speech about the brutality she'd endured because, as a voting rights activist, she wanted black Americans "to become first-class citizens," made primetime before the 1964 DNC officially kicked off.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

Fannie Lou Hamer’s Dauntless Fight for Black Americans’ Right to Vote

The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights

Read excerpts from women senators' testimonials below.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

Women Senators Reflect on the 100th Anniversary of Suffrage

Twenty-four lawmakers shared testimonials with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter with his wife, Rosalynn, and their daughter, Amy, exit the Baptist church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, in 1976.

An Interview With ‘Playboy’ Magazine Nearly Torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Campaign

The pious Georgia Democrat spoke earnestly of his views on sex, a bridge too far for an emerging behemoth voting bloc: conservative Christians

Women vote at the polls in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In Wyoming, women were voting fifty years before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

How the American West Led the Way for Women in Politics

Western territories and states were the first to expand voting rights for women

John F. Kennedy addresses the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles after being nominated for President.

The Top 10 Political Conventions That Mattered the Most

As the two parties shift their conventions to be mostly virtual, we look at those conventions that made a difference in the country’s political history

Page 9 of 29