Key Documents That Shaped America Voted On By Public
Nearly forty thousand Americans cast more than 300,000 votes as part of a national initiative titled: “The People’s Vote: 100 Documents that Shaped America,” cosponsored by the National Archives, National History Day, and U.S. News & World Report.
T. The following is a list of the ten documents that received the most votes and the percentage of votes each received:
— The Declaration of Independence, 75.9 percent
— The U.S. Constitution, 69.3 percent
— The Bill of Rights, 67.9 percent
— The Louisiana Purchase Treaty, 34.3 percent
— The Emancipation Proclamation, 33.5 percent
— The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, 31.4 percent
— The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, 30.1 percent
— The Gettysburg Address, 25.4 percent
— The Civil Rights Act, 25.2 percent
— The Social Security Act, 20.9 percent
The statistics tell the story:
— 39,075 people voted
— 315,052 individual votes were cast
— 26,855 people voted online, casting 195,745 ballots
— 12,220 people voted by paper ballot, casting 119,307 ballots
— All geographic regions were represented
— More votes came from the Midwest than from any other region: 8,579
— Followed by 6,203 votes from the Northeast
— The Southcentral had the fewest number of voters: 1,905
— All age groups participated
— 15,116 respondents were over 50 years old
— The next largest group of voters (7,853) were between 18 – 34 years old
— 23,308 males voted
— 11,947 females voted
The paper ballot included an opportunity for voters to write in documents that were not on the list of 100. The majority of those mentioned were primarily from post-1965, the end date for the official list of 100 milestone documents. Among those documents that received multiple votes were:
— President Reagan’s “Tear down that wall” speech
— President Bush’s speech discussing the September 11 tragedy
— Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Decision
— Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech
— Voters’ birth certificates
— Medicare Bill
The program titled The People’s Vote: 100 Documents That Shaped America, was launched by the Archivist of the United States on September 17, 2003, Constitution Day, in collaboration with National History Day and U.S. News and World Report.
. The People’s Vote invited Americans to vote for 10 items from the list of 100 milestone documents chosen by historians and the National Archives, or to write in their favorites. Thousands of Americans of all ages, from across the entire United States answered the challenge.
The vote is part of a larger project created by the National Archives and National History Day in collaboration with USA Freedom Corps titled Our Documents: A National Initiative on American History, Civics and Service. The purpose of Our Documents is to provide programs like The People’s Vote to engage Americans in a better understanding of the documents that shaped our country.
It was a national challenge to engage Americans in a lively and thoughtful debate about which documents in American history are the most influential. The People’s Vote invited Americans to vote for 10 items from the list of 100 milestone documents chosen by historians and the National Archives, or to write in their favorites. Thousands of Americans of all ages, from across the entire United States answered the challenge. The vote is part of a larger project created by the National Archives and National History Day in collaboration with USA Freedom Corps titled Our Documents: A National Initiative on American History, Civics and Service. The purpose of Our Documents is to provide programs like The People’s Vote to engage Americans in a better understanding of the documents that shaped our country.