Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act (VRA), codified primarily in 52 U.S.C. Subtitle I), prohibits various forms of voter discrimination in elections. Congress enacted the VRA in 1965 during the civil rights movement to enforce and protect voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were widely violated at the time, particularly across states in the South. While the VRA was initially intended to protect racial minorities; in 1975, Congress expanded the VRA to protect specified “language minority” groups, including American Indians, Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, and Spanish-speaking voters.
The VRA prohibits discrimination in several ways. It bars literacy tests and similar “tests or devices” as prerequisites to voting and prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a protected language-minority group. The Act also requires certain jurisdictions to provide election materials and assistance in covered minority languages as well as in English. In areas with particularly significant barriers to voting, the VRA authorizes federal examiners to directly register voters and observe polling places. Finally, Section 5 established a “preclearance” requirement under which certain jurisdictions had to obtain federal approval prior to implementing changes that would impact voters. Although Section 5 remains part of the statute, the Supreme Court invalidated the coverage requirements that determined which jurisdictions were subject to preclearance, making the section currently unenforceable.
Vote Dilution
Section 2 of the VRA prohibits voting practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or color, including certain districting plans and at-large election systems that dilute minority voters’ electoral power. This prohibition applies to states, counties, cities, school districts, and any other governmental units that hold elections.
There are two common forms of vote dilution: “cracking” and “packing.” Cracking occurs when members of a minority community are divided among multiple election districts so that they lack sufficient voting strength to influence the outcome in any of them. Packing occurs when minority voters are concentrated in a small number of districts, potentially reducing their influence in surrounding districts.
Section 2 of the VRA led to the creation of many majority-minority districts, which are districts with the majority of the voting population belonging to a minority demographic. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais (2026) significantly curtailed the power of Section 2 redistricting claims by ruling that the challenged Louisiana redistricting map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision in Callais limited the circumstances in which Section 2 can justify race-conscious districting.
Preclearance
Section 5 of the VRA prohibits certain covered jurisdictions from implementing changes affecting voting without first obtaining “preclearance” from either the United States Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Originally, Section 4(b) (now located at 52 U.S.C. § 10303), determined which jurisdictions were covered by Section 5. Under that rule, a jurisdiction was generally “covered” if it had a “voting test” in place as of November 1, 1964, and yielded less than 50 percent voter registration or voter participation in the 1964 presidential election. Section 5 was originally enacted for five years and was subsequently renewed by Congress several times, until most recently in 2006 (for 25 years). In Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 4(b)’s criteria for determining which jurisdictions were covered was unconstitutional because it relied on historical conditions that the Court determined no longer adequately reflected current conditions in the covered jurisdictions. As a result, jurisdictions can no longer be subjected to Section 5 preclearance under that particular criteria.
For more information about voting rights, see: the U.S. Department of Justice page on the History of Federal Voting Rights Laws, Title 52 of the U.S. Code, the CRS report on The Voting Rights Act of 1965 at 60 Years: Key Supreme Court Decisions Shaping the Law Today, and the CRS report on The Voting Rights Act: Historical Development and Policy Background.
[Last reviewed in September of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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