Page 11 - Voting Changes News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

From 1972 to determine which states, cities and counties are covered by the voting rights act. in his opinion, chief justice john roberts wrote, "our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions." the court did not strike down section 5, which allows the federal government to require pre-approval. but without section 4, section 5 will have no actual effect. in the past two decades alone, just tis department officials have used section 5 to block for than 2,...

New formula. the opinion written by chief justice roberts strikes down section four. that's the portion that set the formula to determine if a state or county required preapproval before making any voting changes. this preclearance portion of the act is called section five. that section survives. but it has no impact unless congress figures out a new formula and agrees on it. and with this current congress, the odds of that happening are slim. the justices are back tomorrow for the final day of the term. that means the final two big cases will be decided then, doma and prop 8, same-sex marriag...

Discrimination, so we shouldn't assume that the voting rights act doesn't address a current problem. you know, i hear a number of people in the media talk about the, you know, the expected demise -- >> you were saying this during the break. >> right. and i think that we have to remember that, you know, first of all, it's folly to predict what the supreme court's going to do, but there's ample reason for the court to uphold section 5 of the voting rights act. right? given the fact that this was a substantial effort by congress that they looked very, very carefully at this record and that this c...

Justice department bails them out, they would no longer be covered new york longer have to submit their voting changes for preclearance. on the other hand, the groups like our non-profit group would have to do section two litigation or use other legal tools certainly not going to give up, but that's very cost prohibitive for us and for the jurisdictions and for voters. these are our most fundamental rights, certainly voters of color with concerned but all americans are concerned about this assault on voting rights and why in the world the supreme court would think that the voting rights sang t...

Something as simple as where a polling place is, moving it out of a neighborhood, for example, that is more accessible to the minority population, changing district lines, the thing about section 5 so important and makes it vulnerable it is incredibly broad in the range of voting system it is applies to. >> kathy, which states, we talk about the broadness of this which states most affected by the ruling? >> states across the south and southwest but also parts of alaska, parts of new york city because they have also had a long history of discrimination in voting. section five's formula actually...