Can you imagine having to pay before casting your vote in Texas?

In the last few months I've come across a couple of poll tax receipts at estate sales around the area.

The little slips of paper – about the size of a check – are usually tucked away in some junk drawer next to the Green Stamps or in a bug-infested box in a garage.

The monetary value of these poll tax receipts, which is minuscule, is outweighed by their historic value.

In recent months there's been a lot of debate regarding voter ID laws and its effect on whether it keeps some groups from taking part in the electoral process. Decades ago, critics said the poll tax kept the poor and minorities from voting.

You think voting requirements today are confusing? Try voting under a poll tax.

Here's how it generally worked. In this example we'll look at a voter's eligibility to cast a ballot in the mid-1950s, according to an explanation at the time by J.C. Davis Jr., assistant Texas attorney general.

The poll tax that you now hold bears the year 1955 and was levied against you on January 1, 1955, and was payable between October 1, 1955 and January 31, 1956, and it entitles you to voting privileges from February 1, 1956 to January 31, 1957, both dates inclusive. [...] All tax receipts issued for any year after January 31st, where the application was not made or was not received by the Assessor-Collector until after January 31st shall be issued, but on the face thereof shall be stamped the following: "Holder not entitled to vote"; and what is more, the recipient of such a poll tax shall not be included in the list of qualified voters prepared by the Assessor-Collector for the use of the various election judges in your county.

To boil it down, in order to vote in an upcoming election, an eligible voter had to pay the poll tax by a certain time. Want to pay at the polls on Election Day? Forget it. There were some exemptions to paying the poll tax, one being over 60 years of age.

So how much did voters have to pay? It varied by county, but in 1950s Harris County, residents paid $1.50, of which $1 went to the state's school fund, 30 cents to the state and 20 cents to the county.

This was a not a new concept of voting in Texas. The poll tax here dates back to the days of the Texas republic, when a $1 tax was levied against all white males between the ages of 21 and 55. (Actually the name is kind of a misnomer. In Middle English "poll" means "head," making it a head tax.)

For a time in the 19th century, penalties were put on those unable to pay the tax. In 1891, for example, delinquent residents were liable to work for three days on county roads – unless they ponied up $3, which would go to the public schools and toward the upkeep of the state's roads and bridges.

In 1902 though, state lawmakers made the poll tax a requirement for voting. Its effects on voting were stark. In a 2015 essay on the history of the poll tax in Texas, Joshua Houston said "turnout by whites dropped to 50 percent and turnout by blacks plummeted to 15 percent."

Poll tax and jury duty In 1954, changes to the Texas constitution would open the door for women to serve on Texas juries. The following year, Harris County officials noticed a drop in the number of residents paying poll taxes. Why? As the Houston Post reported, "many women are reported unwilling to pay poll taxes because of a fear that they will be called to jury duty." Officials were quick to point out that men and women could still be called to serve on a jury, whether the tax was paid or not.

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In effect, Houston said, it cut into the voting strength of the Republican Party and shifted power to the Democrats, which was made up of an "establishment of plantation owners, bankers, merchants, and railroads."

Getting rid of the poll tax in Texas wasn't easy. There were unsuccessful efforts to repeal it, but they always fell short. The move both in Texas and in Washington, D.C., to do away with it didn't begin to gain steam until the early 1960s.

In 1962, Congress passed an anti-poll tax amendment that would prevent the states and federal government from forcing voters to pay a tax to vote in federal elections. By early 1964, enough states had signed on to ratify the 24th Amendment. (Texas wouldn't ratify it until 2009.)

Also in 1962, Texans went to the polls in both the Republican and Democratic primaries to have their say on whether the state should abolish the poll tax. It was a non-binding measure meant to send a message to state lawmakers. That May, voters from both parties indicated opposition to the poll tax.

OK, so what would happen if the Legislature did away with it? That posed a problem as lawmakers couldn't agree on how to set up a system of registering voters. Would someone be permanently registered? And would the state charge someone to register to vote?

State lawmakers eventually worked out these disputes during the 1963 session and put the constitutional amendment abolishing the state's poll tax to a vote that fall.

Democrats urged Texans to back the amendment and do away with what Vice President Lyndon Johnson called the "shame of Texas." Sen. Ralph Yarborough and Gov. John Connally joined the effort to do away with it. Even President John F. Kennedy said getting rid of it would "encourage wider voter participation."

In a number of editorials leading up to the 1963 vote, the Chronicle warned voters of chaos at the polls should the state keep its poll tax for state and local elections while not requiring payment to vote in federal elections, including the 1964 presidential contest.

"A great deal of confusion can be avoided if the poll tax is repealed as a voting requirement," the Chronicle's editorial board wrote on Nov. 7, 1963. "And the cause of fullest possible voter participation in the decisions of government will be served. Only 40 percent of the adult population voted in Texas in 1960, a ratio far below the national average."

In a November letter to the Dallas Express, Martin Luther King Jr. said the poll tax "puts a price tag on freedom."

So this vote was a no-brainer, right?

Nope. Texans rejected calls to end the poll tax: 243,445 voted for repealing it while 330,008 voted against. Harris County voters opted to repeal it 46,382 to 40,135.

An Associated Press article said the defeat was a victory for the GOP.

"Many Republicans felt repeal would aid President Kennedy in Texas next year. Discarding the $1.50 tax as a voting requirement, many political observers said, would stimulate voting among several minority groups which would be expected to vote liberal and Democratic. Others said a new form of cheaper registration to replace the tax would give political bosses more opportunity to set up voting blocs."

Nearly three years later, the courts would be the ones to do away with Texas' poll tax. A three-judge decision at the federal level found that it "infringes on the concept of liberty as protected by the Due Process Clause." A month after that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the 24th Amendment to state elections, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin for the poll tax in Texas and in four other states.