The Voting Rights of 1965 ensures that everyone
(regardless of race) has the right to vote. The right to vote is essential to
democratic participation and government involvement. However, currently,
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is being challenged in the Supreme Court
this term. The current question being considered is whether or not Section 5 is
constitutional in terms of renewal. The section essentially makes 9 states (and
parts of 7 others) report any changes in voting laws that might make voting
more difficult for African Americans. Historically, the states that must report
their changes to Washington participated in voting laws and regulations that
prevented the black vote, no matter how subtle the changes may be. By having
the state’s actions reviewed by a higher authority, racial fueled reasons for
altering voting laws could be prevented and monitored for illegality. The case
is supported by interest groups such as Project on Fair Representation and
DonorsTrust (Greenhouse 2011).
Personally,
I believe that the Voting Rights Act is needed just as much today as it was in
1965. Although surface attitudes have shifted to represent unbiased opinions
and racism is openly ousted and rejected by many groups and Americans, subtle
laws and regulations often go un-noticed. In my opinion, while the public is
sleeping, Washington is at work, meaning that we might not even notice voter
laws around us that could negatively affect our neighbors. In the previous Presidential
election, voter fraud and registration issues were a critical part of the media
for quite a while. For example, many states adopted stricter voter registration
laws prior to the election. These laws required things such as photo ID’s as a
pre-requisite for registration. The problem is that minorities are often
disproportionately affected by these laws because they are less likely to have
a photo ID, due to State controlled operations such as the DMV (Lee 2012). [JMcD1] Although it was not an assigned reading
for the whole class, Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow” really
altered my views on what is really going on when it comes to minority vote.
When photo ID’s are available and every other qualification is met, many
minorities still cannot vote due to their felon status. I believe that Section
5 of the Voting Rights Act will always be needed. If a large interest group can
swoop in and provide millions of dollars to fight against a Section of the VRA,
think about what their money can do when no such Act is in place.
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