From the start of the nation, the question of who deserves the right to vote has been an ongoing debate. For generations, states primarily made those decisions but, wars, protests, and social changes caused the federal government to step in and create Constitutional Amendments to safeguard people’s access to their voting rights.

A Place at the Polls examines what voting rights were nationally and in North Carolina after the Revolutionary War. Later, how various Amendments, from the 15th, granting people of all races the right to vote, to women’s suffrage through the 19th Amendment, affected the nation and N.C. The exhibit also examines other federal laws and how they changed voter rights.

Artifacts, from voting machines to campaign buttons, will be on display. These artifacts are on loan from the Asheville Museum of History, the Swannanoa Valley Museum, the Western Regional Archives, and the museum’s collection.