The act contains two types of provisions: "general provisions", which apply nationwide, and "special provisions", which apply to only certain states and local governments. "The Voting Rights Act was aimed at the subtle, as well as the obvious, state regulations which have the effect of denying citizens their right to vote because of their race. Moreover, compatible with the decisions of this Court, the Act gives a broad interpretation to the right to vote, recognizing that voting includes "all action necessary to make a vote effective." 79 Stat. 445, 42 U.S.C. § 19731(c)(1) (1969 ed., Supp. I). See
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 377 U. S. 555 (1964)." Most provisions are designed to protect the voting rights of racial and language minorities. The term "language minority" means "persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives or of Spanish heritage." Section 2 of the law contains two separate protections against voter discrimination for laws which, in contrast to Section 5 of the law, are already implemented. The first protection is a prohibition of intentional discrimination based on race or color in voting. The second protection is a prohibition of election practices that result in the denial or abridgment of the right to vote based on race or color. In
Mobile v. Bolden (1980), the Supreme Court held that as originally enacted in 1965, Section 2 simply restated the Fifteenth Amendment and thus prohibited only those voting laws that were
intentionally enacted or maintained for a discriminatory purpose. In 1982, Congress amended Section 2 to create a "results" test, which prohibits any voting law that has a discriminatory effect irrespective of whether the law was intentionally enacted or maintained for a discriminatory purpose. In
Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) the United States Supreme Court explained with respect to the 1982 amendment for section 2 that the "essence of a Section 2 claim is that a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives." The United States Department of Justice declared that section 2 is not only a permanent and nationwide-applying prohibition against discrimination in voting to any voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, but also a prohibition for state and local officials to adopt or maintain voting laws or procedures that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Under the amended statute, proof of intent is no longer required to prove a § 2 violation. Now plaintiffs can prevail under § 2 by demonstrating that a challenged election practice has resulted in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on color or race. Congress not only incorporated the results test in the paragraph that formerly constituted the entire § 2, but also designated that paragraph as subsection (a) and added a new subsection (b) to make clear that an application of the results test requires an inquiry into "the totality of the circumstances." Section 2(a) adopts a results test, thus providing that proof of discriminatory intent is no longer necessary to establish any violation of the section. Section 2(b) provides guidance about how the results test is to be applied. There is a
statutory framework to determine whether a jurisdiction's election law violates the general prohibition from Section 2 in its amended form: Section 2 prohibits voting practices that "result[] in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color [or language-minority status]," and it states that, such a result "is established" if a jurisdiction's "political processes are not equally open" to members of such a group "in that [they] have less opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 52 U.S.C. 10301 . [...] Subsection (b) states in relevant part: A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. In
Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021) the United States Supreme Court introduced the means to review Section 2 challenges. The Court laid out these guideposts used to evaluate the state regulations in context of Section 2, which included: the size of the burden created by the rule, the degree which the rule deviates from past practices, the size of the racial imbalance, and the overall level of opportunity afforded voters in considering all election rules. When determining whether a jurisdiction's election law violates the general prohibition from Section 2 of the VRA, courts have relied on factors enumerated in the Senate Judiciary Committee report associated with the 1982 amendments ("Senate Factors"), including: Section 2 prohibits two types of discrimination: "vote denial", in which a person is denied the opportunity to cast a ballot or to have their vote properly counted, and "vote dilution", in which the strength or effectiveness of a person's vote is diminished. Most Section 2 litigation has concerned vote dilution, especially claims that a jurisdiction's
redistricting plan or use of
at-large/multimember elections prevents minority voters from casting sufficient votes to elect their preferred candidates. Redistricting plans can be
gerrymandered to dilute votes cast by minorities by "packing" high numbers of minority voters into a small number of districts or "cracking" minority groups by placing small numbers of minority voters into a large number of districts. In
Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), the Supreme Court used the term "vote dilution through submergence" to describe claims that a jurisdiction's use of an at-large/multimember election system or gerrymandered redistricting plan diluted minority votes, and it established a legal framework for assessing such claims under Section 2. Under the
Gingles test, plaintiffs must show the existence of three preconditions: • The racial or language minority group "is sufficiently numerous and compact to form a majority in a
single-member district"; • The minority group is "politically cohesive" (meaning its members tend to vote similarly); and • The "majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." The first precondition is known as the "compactness" requirement and concerns whether a
majority-minority district can be created. The second and third preconditions are collectively known as the "racially polarized voting" or "racial bloc voting" requirement, and they concern whether the voting patterns of the different racial groups are different from each other. If a plaintiff proves these preconditions exist, then the plaintiff must additionally show, using the remaining Senate Factors and other evidence, that under the "
totality of the circumstances", the jurisdiction's redistricting plan or use of at-large or multimember elections diminishes the ability of the minority group to elect candidates of its choice. the Supreme Court held that the first
Gingles precondition can be satisfied
only if a district can be drawn in which the minority group comprises a majority of voting-age citizens. This means that plaintiffs cannot succeed on a submergence claim in jurisdictions where the size of the minority group, despite not being large enough to comprise a majority in a district, is large enough for its members to elect their preferred candidates with the help of "crossover" votes from some members of the majority group. In contrast, the Supreme Court has not addressed whether different protected minority groups can be aggregated to satisfy the
Gingles preconditions as a coalition, and lower courts have split on the issue. The Supreme Court provided additional guidance on the "totality of the circumstances" test in
Johnson v. De Grandy (1994). The opinion also distinguished the proportionality of majority-minority districts, which allows minorities to have a proportional
opportunity to elect their candidates of choice, from the proportionality of election
results, which Section 2 explicitly does not guarantee to minorities. Since
Gingles, lower courts have split on the issue. Although most Section 2 litigation has involved claims of vote dilution through submergence, the Supreme Court held that claims that minority votes are diluted by the small size of a governing body, such as a one-person
county commission, may not be brought under Section 2. A plurality of the court reasoned that no uniform, non-dilutive "benchmark" size for a governing body exists, making relief under Section 2 impossible. Another type of vote dilution may result from a jurisdiction's requirement that a candidate be elected by a
majority vote. A majority-vote requirement may cause a minority group's candidate of choice, who would have won the election with a simple
plurality of votes, to lose after a majority of voters unite behind another candidate in a
runoff election. The Supreme Court has not addressed whether such claims may be brought under Section 2, and lower courts have reached different conclusions on the issue. In addition to claims of vote dilution, courts have considered vote denial claims brought under Section 2. The Supreme Court, in
Richardson v. Ramirez (1974), held that
felony disenfranchisement laws cannot violate Section 2 because, among other reasons, Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment permits such laws. Starting in 2013, lower federal courts began to consider various challenges to
voter ID laws brought under Section 2.
Specific prohibitions The act contains several specific prohibitions on conduct that may interfere with a person's ability to cast an effective vote. One of these prohibitions is prescribed in Section 201, which prohibits any jurisdiction from requiring a person to comply with any "test or device" to register to vote or cast a ballot. The term "test or device" is defined as literacy tests, educational or knowledge requirements, proof of good moral character, and requirements that a person be vouched for when voting. Before the Act's enactment, these devices were the primary tools used by jurisdictions to prevent racial minorities from voting. Originally, the Act suspended tests or devices temporarily in jurisdictions covered by the Section 4(b) coverage formula, but Congress subsequently expanded the prohibition to the entire country and made it permanent. Several further protections for voters are contained in Section 11. Section 11(a) prohibits any person acting under
color of law from refusing or failing to allow a qualified person to vote or to count a qualified voter's ballot. Similarly, Section 11(b) prohibits any person from intimidating, harassing, or coercing another person for voting or attempting to vote. Finally, under Section 208, a jurisdiction may not prevent anyone who is English-illiterate or has a
disability from being accompanied into the ballot box by an assistant of the person's choice. The only exceptions are that the assistant may not be an
agent of the person's employer or union. During the Act's early history, Section 3(c) was little used; no jurisdictions were bailed in until 1975. Between 1975 and 2013, 18 jurisdictions were bailed in, including 16 local governments and the states of Arkansas and New Mexico. Although the Supreme Court held the Section 4(b) coverage formula unconstitutional in
Shelby County v. Holder (2013), it did not hold Section 3(c) unconstitutional. Therefore, jurisdictions may continue to be bailed-in and subjected to Section 3(c) preclearance. In the months following
Shelby County, courts began to consider requests by the attorney general and other plaintiffs to bail in the states of Texas and North Carolina, and in January 2014 a federal court bailed in
Evergreen, Alabama. A more narrow bail-in process pertaining to federal observer certification is prescribed in Section 3(a). Under this provision, a federal court may certify a non-covered jurisdiction to receive federal observers if the court determines that the jurisdiction violated the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. Jurisdictions certified to receive federal observers under Section 3(a) are not subject to preclearance.
Special provisions Coverage formula , but if the attorney general interposes an objection, the jurisdiction may independently seek judicial preclearance, and the court may disregard the attorney general's objection at its discretion. Private parties may
intervene in judicial preclearance lawsuits. the court held that for a voting change to have a prohibited discriminatory effect, it must result in "retrogression" (backsliding). Under this standard, a voting change that causes discrimination, but does not result in
more discrimination than before the change was made, cannot be denied preclearance for having a discriminatory effect. For example, replacing a poll tax with an equally expensive voter registration fee is not a "retrogressive" change because it causes equal discrimination, not more. Relying on the Senate report for the Act, the court reasoned that the retrogression standard was the correct interpretation of the term "discriminatory effect" because Section 5's purpose is " 'to insure that [the gains thus far achieved in minority political participation] shall not be destroyed through new [discriminatory] procedures' ". Uncertainty remains as to what this language precisely means and how courts may interpret it.
Federal examiners and observers Until the 2006 amendments to the Act, Because of time and resource constraints, federal observers are not assigned to every certified jurisdiction for every election. The 1982 amendment to the bailout eligibility standard went into effect on August 5, 1984. which held that local governments that do not register voters have the ability to bail out. After this ruling, jurisdictions succeeded in at least 20 bailout actions before the Supreme Court held in
Shelby County v. Holder (2013) that the coverage formula was unconstitutional. Congress enacted the provisions to break down language barriers and combat pervasive language discrimination against the protected groups. ==Impact==