The struggle between voter enfranchisement and voter suppression shoots into the headlines during each presidential election cycle. It was highlighted in the third debate between John McCain and Barack Obama when McCain warned ominously that a group called Acorn is "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and "may be destroying the fabric of democracy."

Let's look into that whopper of a charge. First, what is Acorn? The initials stand for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a nonprofit group that was founded in the l970s to encourage voter registration among low and moderate-income people. In 2006, according to Project Vote, a voting rights group, one-third of eligible voters in the country were not registered. Within that number, 71 percent of eligible whites were registered, 61 percent of blacks, 54 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asian-Americans. Acorn continues to work for registering voters and it is worth noting that McCain in 2006 spoke at Acorn in favor of increasing the number of Latinos on the rolls.

Barack Obama is not connected to Acorn. As a lawyer in the past he worked with the United States Justice Department to help Acorn improve voter registration. He has also contributed to organizations, including Acorn, that work for this aim. Acorn with 8,000 canvassers has registered about 1.3 million new voters in this current election cycle. The McCain campaign has accused them of voter fraud based on certain workers who have turned in false names, including Mickey Mouse! Acorn supervisors flagged these violations and the workers were fired. That's the real story before all the exaggeration and florid claim of "destroying the fabric of democracy."

Do most Americans take the right to vote for granted? Every time I go into the polling booth, I think about the centuries it took for us to have reached this point. Let's take a look at how far we have come.

During the first 50 years of our history, only male property owners were qualified to vote. That meant that one in every thirty people was eligible to vote in the first elections after The Constitution was ratified. The property requirement was not abandoned in all the states until North Carolina eliminated it in l856.

After the Civil War, the 14th and 15th Amendments were adopted to guarantee social and economic equality to "Southern Negroes." The Enforcement Act of l870 prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of race or color. However, during Reconstruction, Congress repealed most of the provisions of the Enforcement Act including federal supervision of state elections. Thus, while political control was in force until l884, disfranchisement of Negroes spread throughout the Southern states through poll taxes, literacy tests, "grandfather clauses" and intimidation and violence.

The Supreme Court upheld the poll tax, literacy test and residence requirement in l898. Within 12 years of this decision, every Southern state passed laws to disenfranchise Negro voters. They were often asked to quote The Constitution verbatim to register. It was not until l915 that the Supreme Court ruled that the "grandfather clauses" in Maryland and Oklahoma were "repugnant" to the 15th Amendment and void. The poll tax in federal elections was outlawed by the 24th Amendment.

Concurrent with the tortuous decades of disenfranchisement of Negro voters in the l9th and 20th centuries was the arduous struggle for women's suffrage — from the Seneca Falls Convention in l848 to the passage of the l9th Amendment in l920. The landmark convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, both Quakers, drew 200 women and 40 men including the former slave and fiery abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. Stanton, who became known as the philosopher of the Women's Movment, wrote the Seneca Falls Declaration, patterned on the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal . . ." the Declaration called for women's rights to vote and reforms of marital and property laws that kept women in an inferior status.

Susan B. Anthony joined Stanton, Mott and other leaders in the years ahead to fight for their right to vote. Stanton was at home raising seven children as Anthony traveled the nation, organizing, speaking and exhorting crowds. She was single minded and indomitable - her motto "Nothing is impossible!" Anthony did not live to see the l9th Amendment passed in the dramatic moment when one young Tennessee legislator followed the advice of his mother's letter and changed his vote from Nay to Yea. Thus, the last possible 36th state voted for ratification and the l9th Amendment was passed.

A statue below the dome in the Capitol Rotunda is The Suffrage Portrait Monument. It had been relegated to the basement in l921, but was brought to a more prominent place in l997 by an act of Congress. The busts of three women are carved atop a 26,000-pound block of unfinished marble — Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. It is significant to note that once the battle was won and the l9th Amendment passed, women's right to vote was never challenged.

The Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, l965, was a major achievement of the Civil Rights Movement. The intent was to finally abolish all the barriers that had kept blacks from voting in Southern states since l870. It brought enormous change. In the three years after it passed, a million new black voters cast ballots. In Mississippi, where only 7 percent of blacks had been allowed to register before l965, 72 percent registered by l988. In l964, there were 300 black public officials nationwide. Today, there are more than 9,100 — including 43 members of Congress. The Voting Rights Act is reviewed for renewal every ten years. In l975, the act was expanded to cover "language minorities." There are nearly 6,000 Hispanic elected officials at present - including 27 members of Congress.

"We're doing better than we were 40 years ago, but we're not there yet," said Theodore Shaw, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, one of the groups that works to renew the law. He added, "The reality is that the Voting Rights Act is not a dead statute. It is one that is being used every day."

It is now 2008 and the election is next Tuesday, Nov. 4. Certain states, such as Indiana, have enacted Voter ID laws that demand a voter present multiple forms of verification to prove they can vote. The Supreme Court upheld the Indiana law. The struggle between enfranchisement and suppression continues. At present, private organizations and campaigns launch voter registration drives. There are those who believe that federal and state governments should do their own large scale registration drives staffed by experienced election officials. In their lead editorial, The New York Times summed up the important issue, "The real threat to the fabric of democracy are the unreasonable barriers that stand in the way of eligible voters casting ballots."

When you go to the polls next Tuesday, rejoice in your precious right to vote!

Joyce S. Anderson's articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other national publications. She is the author of "Courage in High Heels," "Flaw in the Tapestry," "If Winter Comes" and "The Mermaids Singing." She can be reached at JSAWrite@aol.com.