To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Congress: Amend the Voting Rights Act to include Nationwide Preclearance
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which subjects some areas of the United States, mostly in the South, to a legal requirement to obtain preclearance from the U.S. Justice Department for changes to voting laws and procedures, was ruled unconstitutional.
It's time for Congress to amend the Voting Rights Act to establish a nationwide preclearance requirement.
Why is this important?
Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which required some states and localities (mostly in the South) to obtain preclearance from the United States Department of Justice before implementing changes to voting laws and procedures, is unconstitutional, in effect rendering the Section 5 preclearance provision of the VRA inoperative and making it much harder to enforce the VRA.
These days, deliberately disenfranchising ethnic minorities from being able to elect the public officials of their choice has become commonplace in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the Deep South.
It is now time for Congress to re-write Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act so that all states and localities of the United States would be legally required to obtain preclearance from the United States Department of Justice before implementing changes to voting laws and procedures.