Despite glacial gains, the crowning achievement for bedrock democracy came in the form of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which restored and protected voting rights at the federal level and held certain states and jurisdictions, referred to as “covered jurisdictions,” accountable for discrimination. The most effective provision of the law would be found in the preclearance mechanism of Section 5, which mandated that any time a covered jurisdiction—be it city, county, or state—attempted to change any election law, practice, or procedure, the U.S. Justice Department had to agree that it did not
...more
