Shelby County Vs Holder

The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to ensure state and local governments do not pass laws or policies that deny American citizens the equal right to vote based on race however Shelby county in Alabama filed a lawsuit in us supreme court saying that section 5 did in fact discriminate based on race. This act made is so it was “requiring certain jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to submit any proposed changes in voting procedures to the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal district court in D.C” however it increased costs for monitoring and pursuing litigation over voting restrictions, and, perhaps most significantly, more laws creating new requirements in the voting process — many of them disproportionately affecting black voters and other communities of color.

since Shelby, “states have really opened the floodgates to voter suppression, and we’ve seen laws that have discriminated against voters of color all across the country,” says Leigh Chapman, the director of the voting rights program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.