Voting Rights Act: Main Idea
Voting Rights Act: Main Idea
15.5th Amendment
We're going to keep this short and sweet, because it's insane that this Act had to be enacted in the first place. After all, the central point here was something that was thought up three generations prior.
Under all the proper legal boilerplate is a pretty simple demand: stop illegally restricting African American voters, or any voters based on identity.
That's it—just follow the 15th Amendment…after ninety—yes, ninety—years of it gathering dust on the shelf.
Questions
- Why are literacy tests for voting being explicitly outlawed by this act, and what grade level education ensures your right to the vote?
- How, statistically, are inspectors advised to figure out if votes could be being suppressed, and is this a fair metric?
- Under the act, does anything happen to a ballot official convicted of voter suppression, and how does it compare to the punishment for someone caught committing voter fraud?
- What is the main power that this act actually gives the federal government?
Chew On This
One of the main effects of this bill is to give individual voters a direct pipeline to the federal government to report any foul play regarding voting. This lets them get around the state institutions that are most hell-bent on silencing them.
This act is another shot fired in the long-standing political battle over Federal vs. States' rights. While Jackson may have denounced nullification all the way back in 1832, finding legal loopholes to federal rulings became the new form of nullification.
Quotes
Quote #1
No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color. (2.1)
The opening salvo of this act is basically just to reiterate the unfortunately oft-ignored 15th Amendment. It's a clear statement of purpose, as is pretty standard for law-writing. And what this clear statement states? Stop trying to deny American citizens the right to vote, you jerks.
Quote #2
If in a proceeding instituted by the Attorney General under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the court finds that a test or device has been used for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, it shall suspend the use of tests and devices in such State or political subdivisions as the court shall determine is appropriate and for such period as it deems necessary. (3.b.1)
While individual punishments come later in the bill, this is the state's punishment: the complete inability to control legislation requirements. This potentially begs the question of why states need separate voting requirements from the Federal ones.
Quote #3
The Congress finds that the requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting (i) precludes persons of limited means from voting or imposes unreasonable financial hardship upon such persons as a precondition to their exercise of the franchise, (ii) does not bear a reasonable relationship to any legitimate State interest in the conduct of elections, and (iii) in some areas has the purpose or effect of denying persons the right to vote because of race or color. (10.a.1)
This section mainly debunks justifications for a poll tax…but it also hints at the connection between class and race. People of color are often, systematically, pushed into poorer neighborhoods with less opportunity to advance. That's why a poll tax can be doubly heinous—it bars poorer people from voting, and those poor people are, in some cases, overwhelmingly people of color.
Quote #4
Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address, or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…(11.c.1)
For those people who think the Voting Rights Act somehow prevents states from stopping people from voting illegally, here you go. The Federal government already is vested in protecting voter fraud, with a hugely steep punishment for lawbreakers. You do not want to vote illegally.
Quote #5
There are hereby authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act (18.1)
An interesting bit of legal hanging-on you don't think about: the bill also approves the spending necessary to enforce the bill. Congress and the President have an interesting relationship when it comes to budgets (Congress suggests a budget, the President approves it, Congress sometimes forgets it sets the budget and admonishes the President for spending like a madman, etc.). But let's not open that can of worms, or we'll be here all day.