Today is Election Day in America, and while it should be as revered as any other holiday, it's not. We simply take for granted that we have the privilege to vote. You're probably wondering about my word choice, but voting is not a right, it is in fact a privilege, which is why non-citizens, children, and felons can't vote (if something can be legally taken away from you, it's not a right). This is also why the electoral history of the U.S. has been unequal and inconsistent until recently. If you are member of one of the following groups of people, consider that there was once a time where you would not have had the right to vote.

1. Before 1971, if you were between the ages of 18-20, you could not vote. However, when the country was at war, you were old enough for the government to draft you into the army and send you off to kill or be killed by people you'd never met. Thanks to student activism against this injustice during the Vietnam War, the country was graced with the 26th amendment to the Constitution, which grants 18-20 year old the right to vote.
2. If you are of Native American descent, your ancestors first got the right to vote in 1887 through the Dawes Act, but only if they relinquished their tribal affiliation. That's fair; give up who you are so that you can become a citizen of a country that doesn't want you. Despite the Dawes Act, several states refused to allow Indians to vote. Finally, in 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act made all Native Americans citizens, giving them the right to vote in federal elections. It would be another 24 years, however, before the last state would eventually allow Indians to vote in state and local elections.
3. Everybody knows, or at least should know, that it was the 19th amendment, ratified in 1920, that gave women the right to vote. You would assume that such an amendment would pass rather easily, but surprisingly it did not. Eight states rejected the amendment, while in Tennessee, the amendment was approved by just one vote!
4. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo granted citizenship to the Mexican inhabitants of the newly acquired lands in the American southwest following the Mexican-American War. Unfortunately for them, English proficiency tests, literacy tests, and property requirements kept Mexicans disenfranchised until the 15th amendment removed these restrictions.
5. Speaking of the 15th amendment, this was supposed to be the Constitutional amendment that gave blacks the right to vote, and it worked like a charm at first. That is until the end of Reconstruction and the implementation of Jim Crow laws in the south. In 1896, Louisiana implemented it's "grandfather clause" to its state constitution, which required voters to register between January 1, 1897 and January 1, 1898, and only allowed literate property owners to register. However, illiterate or non-property owning voters whose fathers or grandfathers could vote in 1867 (before Reconstruction) were also are allowed to register. This single clause dropped the number of registered black voters in Louisiana to 4% by 1900. With the success of the grandfather clause, other southern states followed suit, with some even holding political conventions solely designed to disenfranchise black voters. It wasn't until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that these barriers to voting were removed. (Fun fact: this is where the term "to be grandfathered in" came from. Think of that the next time your cell phone company raises its rates but tells you that your plan is grandfathered in).
6. The Naturalization Act of 1790 allowed for "free white persons" of "good moral character" to be granted citizenship after being permanent residents for 2 years. This was the first act that established a process for immigrants to gain citizenship, and was also the basis for preventing Asians from becoming American citizens over the following 150 years. To make matters worse, in 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which took it a step further by restricting Chinese immigration altogether, and preventing Chinese permanent residents from becoming citizens (despite the passage of the 14th amendment 14 years earlier). The Immigration Act of 1924 expanded these restrictions to include anybody of East Asian or South Asian descent, and these laws would not be fully repealed until 1965.
7. 1776 is remembered as a banner year for the United States, and the birth of the most libertarian country in the world, but again, not for everybody. People assume that the laws restricting the right to vote only applied to women and minorities, but in the early days of the republic, non-property owning white men were not allowed to vote. On top of that, Quakers, Jews, and Catholics were barred from voting regardless of their skin color or property ownership status. Surprisingly, despite the existence of the Constitution, this discrimination against religious groups would continue until 1810. As for the property ownership rules, the last state to remove them was North Carolina in 1856.

The majority of you that are reading this are probably a member of at least one of these 7 groups, and you probably have ancestors who suffered because of these rules. People fought long and hard to ensure that you can participate in free and fair elections. By not voting you are spitting on the grave of your ancestors.