Immediately after Shelby, election officials in covered jurisdictions began picking at the low-hanging fruit and moving to close polling places in minority communities and to limit early voting opportunities that allowed working-class citizens to vote without missing work. The long game included actions ranging from voter purges to restrictive voter ID requirements to polling place closures. States facing more voters of color or younger voters have changed the rules so that, while facially neutral, the new laws result in a disturbingly predictable adverse effect: it’s harder to vote.
