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Voting Rights Resource page

 

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder case (oral arguments were Feb. 27) and Arizona v. ITCA, Inc. (the so-called NVRA case, oral arguments were March 18), ACS will help serve as a resource on the cases and the issue of voting rights – one of the most fundamental rights.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) remains one of the most important and effective laws ever enacted. It outlaws discriminatory voting practices that have disenfranchised racial and ethnic minorities in the United States for decades and continues to ensure an open electoral process. As we have seen over the past few years, many states and jurisdictions still seek to enact their own measures aimed at making it harder for people – often minorities, the elderly, and the young – to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.

Section 5 of the VRA requires jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to submit any proposed voting changes to the federal government for “preclearance” before they are enacted to ensure that they are not discriminatory. An overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress voted in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 for another 25 years following an extensive and exhaustive review of the record. Shelby County is arguing that it was unconstitutional for Congress to reauthorize Section 5. While a district court and federal court of appeals upheld Section 5, its fate is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, which in the past has consistently upheld Congress' authority over the VRA.

The Arizona case, meanwhile, concerns a state voter registration law that conflicts with the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA or the “motor voter” bill). While the NVRA allows people to register to vote using a simple, uniform postcard, Arizona’s law rejects the federal form unless it also complies with the additional – and, not surprisingly, onerous – state documentation requirements.

(Click here for deatils about the areas covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.) 

 

ACS RESOURCES ON VOTING RIGHTS

"Keeping Faith with the Constitution" by Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan & Christopher H. Schroeder

ACS Issue Briefs

ACSblog Posts

 

ACS VOTING RIGHTS EVENTS

  • ACS Chapter Events here

  • National Event: "A Look at Shelby County: The Future of the Voting Rights Act," Feb. 14, 2013 -- Washington, D.C. See video here: 

 

COURT DOCUMENTS / CASE ANALYSIS / STATEMENTS

 

COURT BRIEFS (SHELBY COUNTY CASE)

  • U.S. Government (Department of Justice) Brief

  • U.S. House Judiciary Committee Leadership Brief (Reps. Sensenbrenner, Conyers, Chabot, Nadler, Watt and Scott)

  • U.S. Rep. John Lewis Brief

  • Congressional Tri-Caucus Brief (Reps. Fudge, Hinojosa and Chu of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, respectively)

  • ACLU Brief

  • Lawyers’ Committee Brief

  • NAACP Legal Defense Fund Brief

  • Asian American Public Interest Groups Brief

  • Bailed Out Jurisdictions Brief

 

COURT BRIEFS (ARIZONA CASE)

  • U.S. Government (Department of Justice) Brief
  • Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Brief
  • Brief on Behalf of Members of Congress on Legislative Intent
  • Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund Brief

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ) RESOURCES

 OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES

ARTICLES

 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

  • Media Matters voting pieces:

 

VIDEOS 

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has created two videos that explain some of the attempts to deprive Americans of their right to vote that have been stopped because of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. These examples are not unique, and they show how many jurisdictions have even recently tried to take away the rights of some Americans to vote. For more information, visit their site.

This video shows how the Voting Rights Act is at work in Alabama:

This video shows how Texas passed a discriminatory law that would have denied Victoria Rose Rodriguez, a college student in San Antonio, the right to vote:

 

 
 
This video shows an 82-year-old woman telling the story about how the legislators in South Carolina tried to deny her the right to vote because she has never had a birth certificate:
 

 

ACS will update this page regularly with new documents, articles, videos, podcasts, blog posts, friend-of-the-court briefs and much, much more.