The on juries and run for local

The issueof voting in America originated back in 60s during the Reconstruction period inthe South.

There were tactics such as violence and intimidation used againstblacks to prevent them from participating in elections. Jim Crow Laws wereintroduced, separating blacks from the white population. Democrats passed lawsto make voter registration and electoral rules limited and this resulted in thepolitical participation of blacks and also, poor whites decreased. In the late1800s early 1900s blacks voting was suppressed even more. The Confederatestates passed amendments disenfranchising blacks and poor whites with polltaxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency requirements. With thesenew constitutions along with harassment, physical violence, and intimidationwhen they tried registering or voting, voter turnouts decreased tremendously.

The inability to vote also affected eligibility to serve on juries and run forlocal office.             After WorldWar II, the Civil Rights Movement came about in attempts to resist these lawsset for the purpose to disenfranchise black Americans.  There were plenty of boycott demonstrationsand protests conducted by black Americans in hopes for changes to be made bypoliticians. By 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, signed in to law byPresident Lyndon Johnson, as a response to the nearly century-long history ofvoting discrimination. This act channeled the Fifteenth Amendment that put inplace to protect citizens from having their right to vote abridged or denieddue to “ race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (U. S. Constitution. Art.

/Amend. XV, Sec. 1.

).             “ The VotingRights Act of 1965 (amended and/or extended in 1975, 1982, and 2006) wasspecifically written to overcome the use of legal and extralegal practices toexclude minorities from the voting booth and minimize minority political voiceand power” (Bowler, Shaun). This act also gave the federal government access tomonitor states with historically low voter turnout.

Section 2 prohibits votedenial and vote dilution, i. e. gerrymandering and vote cracking. Section 4bidentifies consistently discriminatory districts.

Section 5 covers jurisdictionneeding preclearance before changing any election laws.             The firstissue I found here is that the courts consider Congress’s preclearance sectionof the Voting Rights Acts to be outdated. In the case of Shelby County v. Holder, the Court held that “ Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act imposes currentburdens that are no longer responsive to the current conditions in the votingdistricts in question” (Shelby County v. Holder).

In his concurring opinion, “ JusticeClarence Thomas argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act isunconstitutional in addition to Section 4. He wrote that the blatantdiscrimination against certain voters that Section 5 was intended to prohibitis no longer evident. Without such extraordinary circumstances, Congress cannotconstitutionally justify placing the burden of Section 5 on the states inquestion (Shelby County v. Holder)             Thisleads me to my second issue that is voter discrimination and how it covertly persists today. As of 2017, more thanhalf the country implemented new voter registration laws making it moredifficult for citizens to vote in America. These new laws include strict photoID requirements, early voting cutbacks, registration restrictions, etc.; allforms of voter suppression that keeps citizens away from the polls on ElectionDay.

Going back to Justice Thomas’ opinion, it seems that he may be wrong. These last few years of states passing laws in order to take advantage ofelection results should be considered an extraordinary circumstance. Blatantlyproving why Congress needs to rewrite the “ outdated” preclearance system inorder to prevent the issue of voter discrimination.

Voting lawsthat require certain types of ID cards or laws that ban those with criminalbackgrounds largely target POC and lower income people. Not to mentioncompletely denying prisoners the right to vote and the extreme difficultiesthat comes with being homeless and trying to vote. There is also a senseof discouragement amongst lower income voters by having Election Day take placeduring a work day, tacked on with the fact that they aren’t automaticallyregistered to vote in this country so one would have to make time to registeras well. Legally everyone is supposed to be allowed time away from their job tovote with no reduction in pay, but there are several stipulations within thatright. Your employer might still force you to stay or the lines, especially inminority/lower income neighborhoods where polling stations have been cut by thehundreds, exceed the time you’re allowed to take and receive payment for.

Thisgets even more complicated when you factor in things like lack oftransportation, childcare, etc.             For instance, in 2016 North Carolina fought to have a voter ID law passed that prohibited earlyvoting days and banned same-day voter registration, eliminated straight-ticketvoting, and introduced more restrictions on casting provisional ballots. It wouldprohibit pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds. After the Shelby Countyruling, this made states like North Carolina free from preclearance. Thisallowed North Carolina’s Republicans to write and pass the bill HB 589. Luckily, the 4th U. S.

Circuit Court of Appeals eventually blocked it. The court found that the billhad a disproportionate impact on minorities and was enacted with the discriminatoryintent to disenfranchise them. This was in violation of both the Voting RightsAct and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The courtwrote that the legislature had “ targeted African Americans with almost surgicalprecision.

”             Legislatureslike to insist that bills such as HB 589 are designed to stop voter fraud, which in most cases have been proven to be non-existent in the United States. Thesetypes of laws and barriers disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters everyelection cycle and with parts of the Voting Rights Act being stripped away it’sonly gotten worse.