The Voting Rights Act Turns 61 as New Threats to the Ballot Box Mount

The Voting Rights Act turned 61 August 6, but actions of this year have gutted much of it, and new threats to voting are increasing. We have to be vigilant and keep shining the light of advocacy for voting rights.

The Voting Rights Act was  passed in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. Congress passed the VRA in order to end post-Civil War and Jim Crow-era voter disenfranchisement, especially in southern states, by prohibiting “literacy tests,” mass voter challenges and other techniques states were using to stop Black Americans from voting.

Voters today also have the VRA to thank for ballots in languages other than English and protections for blind, disabled and illiterate voters.

But, on April 29, the Supreme Court’s devastating ruling in Louisiana v. Callais dismantled the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, which prohibits voting rules or procedures that discriminate against voters based on race, color or language minority status. Louisiana v. Callais was an unprecedented legal attack to voting rights that voting-rights advocates are still reckoning with and working to make sense of the fallout. The Court’s ruling effectively gives a green light to race-based gerrymandering of voting districts.

Unsurprisingly, lawmakers immediately moved to redraw congressional voting district maps, including in Florida—a new trend that shows no sign of stopping.

At the same time, election rules across the country are currently shifting, while proposed legislation moving through Congress right now is attempting to make it harder for people to vote.
The proposed Voter ID Act, for example, would create the unnecessary barrier of requiring voters to present government-issued photo IDs in order to vote.

The SAVE Act suite of bills would require voters to present documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC)—such as a passport or a certified birth certificate—to even register to vote, even though many eligible voters don’t have such documents readily available. Feminist advocates have also argued that, by affecting married women with different combinations of their maiden name and married name across different documents, the SAVE Act is in part a sneaky attempt to reduce the number of women voting in November.

However, the current administration is working to quietly disrupt voting this November, from firing the remaining U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) members, to continuing to challenge the legality of mail-in ballots and lobby the Supreme Court to do Trump’s bidding—part of an ongoing effort to expand federal control over election administration ahead of the midterms.

In June, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled against the Republican National Committee in Watson v.RNC, a decision that would have prevented ballots postmarked by Election Day from counting if they arrived shortly afterward.

On June 30, the Court struck down President Trump’s executive order that would have ended birthright citizenship (which guarantees U.S. citizenship, and the right to vote, to everyone born in this country), by only a 6-3 margin.

“There’s just this onslaught that’s coming from the administration itself, and then the judiciary,” Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, told Ms magazine. “I don’t think it gives people a lot of confidence that [the Supreme Court justices] understand how important voting rights are … You can see the erosion on the Court as they move toward supporting the administration more and moving away from public discourse and public opinion.”  This information comes from the League of Women Voters https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/news-clips/voting-rights-act-turns-61-new-threats-ballot-box-mount