furthermore, there is a TON, a MOUNTAIN of legislative history on the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The
Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of
federal legislation in the
United States that prohibits
racial discrimination in
voting.
[7][8] It was signed into law by
President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the
civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and
Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections.
[7] Designed to enforce the
voting rights guaranteed by the
Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments to the
United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for
racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the
South. According to the
U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal
civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.
[9] It is also "one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history."
[10]
The act contains numerous provisions that regulate elections. The act's "general provisions" provide nationwide protections for voting rights. Section 2 is a general provision that prohibits state and local government from imposing any voting rule that "results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color" or membership in a language minority group.
[11] Other general provisions specifically outlaw
literacy tests and similar devices that were historically used to disenfranchise racial minorities. The act also contains "special provisions" that apply to only certain jurisdictions. A core special provision is the Section 5 preclearance requirement, which prohibited certain jurisdictions from implementing any change affecting voting without receiving preapproval from the
U.S. attorney general or the
U.S. District Court for D.C. that the change does not discriminate against protected minorities.
[12] Another special provision requires jurisdictions containing significant language minority populations to provide
bilingual ballots and other election materials.
Section 5 and most other special provisions applied to jurisdictions encompassed by the "coverage formula" prescribed in Section 4(b). The coverage formula was originally designed to encompass jurisdictions that engaged in egregious voting discrimination in 1965, and Congress updated the formula in 1970 and 1975. In
Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the
U.S. Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as unconstitutional, reasoning that it was no longer responsive to current conditions.
[13] The court did not strike down Section 5, but without a coverage formula, Section 5 is unenforceable.
[14] The jurisdictions which had previously been covered by the coverage formula massively increased the rate of voter registration purges after the Shelby decision.
[15]
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