ThelifeThe 2018 midterm elections are just a week away, and millions of Americans are expected to head to the polls to exercise their right to vote.
Voting is one of America's most cherished democratic liberties, and it has a long and storied history. While the founding fathers saw voting as a fundamental component of the democracy and perfect union they sought to create, the right to vote was denied for many populations for centuries of US history.
In the beginning of the republic, voting was mainly restricted to property-owning white men, which would later be extended to all white men. While the right to vote was also eventually granted to women with the 19th Amendment in 1920, white women were the main beneficiaries.
Men and women of color would continue to fight to battle discriminatory voting practices for decades even after technically receiving the right to vote, culminating in the historic civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which led to landmark legislation that transformed American voting rights.
But even today, activists and civil rights groups are continuing to fight voting laws they see as discriminatory.
Here's a look at how voting rights in America have evolved over the centuries, and what issues remain today:
