if all the literate people were male and all the illiterate people were female, requiring literacy would not necessarily be sexism. you're conflating 2 different things. as did they. perhaps it did exclude more recently-emancipated black people. oh well. requiring literacy for something as important as an election is not obstructionist, IMHO

The fee you mentioned, however, is, IMHO.

if I had to hire a scientist for a job and the only applicants that were qualified enough were white males, hiring a white male would not make me a racist sexist.

i look forward to the day when people just stop trying to correlate everything both positive and negative to race, gender, age, and any other attribute other than "are you a good person" and "can you do this job well"