This one hurts a bit.

The Voting Rights Act has been firmly in place for four decades, until just a few years ago. In 2013, the Voting Rights Act, by Supreme Court mandate, lost one of its most fundamental protections: states no longer need Federal approval to change their voting laws.

Read on here, dear reader, for a further breakdown of this mind-boggling and heart-breaking decision.

Under the old system, this made a lot of sense: since States had to come to the Federal government to get voting laws changed, the Fed knew what laws were being proposed when, and could respond neatly on a case-by-case basis. Congress had to analyze and approve each proposal as a result, guaranteeing that there would be at least one eye on any and all changes.

Citing the dubious legal proposal that "times have changed," the Supreme Court voted in a near-split 5-4 decision to remove this protection, which defangs the act almost entirely.

While removing the requirement for Federal approval technically doesn't remove the Fed's ability to enforce the Act, it does give states a huge shroud of red tape to hide their changes behind. If they don't need to get Federal approval, they can make any change they want in the meantime, knowing that the ball is now in Congress' court to actually enforce anything, and in order to do that they must feel strongly that there's evidence of wrongdoing.

And this, sadly and critically, relies on administration willing to not turn a blind eye to any particular corruption.

The fact that enforcement of the act is now a partisan issue completely disables the heart of the bill: its ability to close loopholes. With this vetting process removed, voting corruption can once again slip under the rug unimpeded as long as nobody's bothering to lift it up.

And if there's one thing we've learned about lifting rugs from years of studying history (and vacuuming living rooms): it takes a special kind of interest to get the job done. Here's hoping that our American leaders—now and in the future—are the kind of through politicians/living-room cleaners that do this.