The Voting Rights Act (VRA) outlawed discriminatory voting practices during the early Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. Initially, the VRA only protected racial minorities, but in 1975, Congress extended its protections to members of “language minorities,” including voters who speak Spanish, Native American languages, Alaskan Native languages, and Asian languages. The VRA was passed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to guarantee the 15th amendment which Southern states were violating through discriminatory practices to exclude African Americans from voting.
The VRA prevents voting discrimination in several ways. It prohibits literacy tests or similar “tests or devices” as a prerequisite to voter registration and requires jurisdictions with significant language minority populations to provide non-English ballots and oral voting instructions. The VRA also protects minorities from vote dilution. In areas with particularly significant discrimination problems, the act authorized federal examiners to directly register voters and observe polling places. Finally, it requires areas with a history of voting discrimination to “preclear” changes to their voting laws.
Vote Dilution
Section 2 of the VRA, prohibits drawing election districts in ways that improperly dilute minorities’ voting power. This prohibition applies to states, counties, cities, school districts, and any other governmental unit that holds elections. Two typical forms of vote dilution involve “cracking,” or breaking into smaller pieces, a minority community between several election districts. Cracking occurs when election officials split a single minority community into enough different election districts that even if the community voted as a bloc, it could not influence any single districts’ elections. The second form is “submerging” minority communities in multi-member districts. Election officials might dilute a minority community’s voting power by submerging it in a multi-member district with enough non-minority voters to routinely defeat the minority community’s chosen candidates.
Preclearance and Bail-Out
Section 5 of the VRA, prohibits “covered” jurisdictions, or states and counties determined by Section 4, from changing their voting laws without first getting preclearance from either the United States Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the District Court of the District of Columbia (D.C.). The section covers states and counties that have a history of discriminatory voting practices or poor minority voting registration rates. To obtain preclearance for a change in voting rules, a jurisdiction must show that the new rules will not violate the VRA.
Covered jurisdictions may apply to “bail-out” of the VRA’s Section 5 preclearance requirements. Only the United States Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia District Court may approve bail-out requests. To qualify for bail-out, a jurisdiction must show that for the past ten years, it has not violated the VRA. Furthermore, the bail-out applicant must show that it has worked to eliminate discriminatory voting practices not covered by the VRA, including voter intimidation, and that it has successfully improved minority access to the electoral process.
Please visit the U.S. Department of Justice website and see 52 U.S. Code for more information about voting rights.
[Last updated in July of 2024 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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