The US Constitution delegated to the states the right to decide how elections should be held and decided in each state.  

This produced variations. There was no requirement for a secret ballot.  In some places ballots "Tickets" were different colors for different parties. Observers could easily see who three which color tickets into a ballot box. 

Women in Wyoming were allowed to vote long before the US 19th amendment allowed women in all the other states to vote in 1920.

 North Carolina's Constitution of 1776 allowed all free black men, native American men, and white men over the age of 21  to vote. Any that owned 50 acres of land or more could vote for higher offices.

Southern colonies had been predominately settled by English nobility (UVA Cavaliers, for instance?)  Like their forefathers, owning land was the mark of nobility and education.  Men who had earned their money "in trade" were considered socially inferior. Many Southern States restricted the vote to men over 21 possessing 50 or more acres.  

By the 1830s there was a rising upper middle class of men who made large amounts of money but not be able to vote for, let alone hold, higher offices because they did not own enough land.  Also in the South, rising fears of slave rebellions moved legislatures to disenfranchise native Americans and free blacks no matter how much property they owned. 

Before the Civil War, it was not just the slave holding states that restricted black voting.  An Ohio Congressional election in 1858 was contested on the grounds "a known Negro voted."  Most "free" states prohibited blacks from voting or even holding licenses to practice law, medicine, or other trades.

A detailed example of voting rights from my home state of North Carolina:

North Carolina has a varied history of who is allowed to vote

Under NC’s first constitution declared in 1776, men 21 years or older, white, free black, or native American who had paid taxes and resided in the state for at least one year could vote for candidates for “The NC House of Commons.”  To vote for a candidate for the NC Senate, any white, free black, or native American who had paid taxes and owned at least 50 acres of land qualified. Members of the NC Legislature elected the governor.  The governor and other public office holders had to be Protestant Christians.  Women and any enslaved people were not allowed to vote.

In the face of rising white fears of a slave rebellion, a new NC constitutional convention was called in 1835, Free blacks and native Americans were disenfranchised, whether they owned property and paid taxes or not. White men 21 or older and resident for at least one year were qualified to vote. The property owning requirement was eliminated and the governor would be popularly elected. Women and any enslaved people were not allowed to vote.

A new NC Constitution was required after the Civil War for NC to re join the Union.  The 1868 NC Constitution allowed men of all races over 21 to vote, “regardless of previous condition of servitude.”  There was no property requirement. Women were not allowed to vote.

In 1900 a newly elected legislature dominated by the segregationist Democratic Party enacted Jim Crow Laws.  All men over 21 had to pass a literacy test and/or have a grandfather who had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867.  Any illiterate white man could be grandfathered in. White men were seldom subjected to a literacy test anyway, and black or native American men over 21 were generally asked impossibly arcane and obscure questions to deliberately disenfranchise them. Women were not allowed to vote.

With passage of the 19 th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, women over 21 were allowed to vote as well.  In practice, black women and native American women were disenfranchised in the same way as their husbands were.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. States could no longer require literacy tests or poll taxes.  The US Justice Department was directed to monitor elections held in areas of the United States known to have unjustly restricted voting rights. Blacks and native Americans, men and women, over the age of 21 may now vote.

1971 the voting age for all people is lowered to 18 with passage of the 26^th amendment to the US Constitution.

The first presidential election held nationwide on the same day was in 1848.  The was made possible by the rapid spread of the telegraph. For the first time, the outcome was known the next day. 

In the department of "Radical Then, Conservative Now" my grandfather was a young man in NC in the early 1900s.  He held what was then a radical view that anybody, black or white, male or female who owned property should be allowed to vote.