In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which requires that all election law changes in part or all of certain states must be pre-cleared by the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department. Alternatively, if the Voting Rights Section refuses to approve the change, the jurisdiction is free to ask a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to approve the change. Covered states, counties, and localities are also given an opportunity to opt out of the coverage requirement, but the procedure to do that is very difficult. Currently, part or all of 16 states must comply with the pre-clearance part of the Act.
On February 2, 2011, a U.S. District Court Judge in Washington, D.C., heard oral arguments in the latest lawsuit by a covered entity to find the pre-clearance of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. See this story. The lawsuit was filed by Shelby County, Alabama, on April 27, 2010, and is called Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, 1:10-cv-651. Although this part of the Voting Rights Act has been upheld several times by the U.S. Supreme Court, this latest lawsuit focuses on the point that when Congress extended the Act in 2006 for another twenty-five years, Congress relied on data from the 1964, 1968, and 1972 elections, to determine which areas ought to be covered by the Act. The county argues the formula is out-of-date. Shelby County, a suburban county south of Birmingham, is largely white and very Republican. In November 2008, Barack Obama got 22.8% of the vote in Shelby County.
ALL/most of the VRA stuff since 1966 has been a giant perversion of 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 in connection with 15th Amdt, Sec. 1.
The 39th Congress was well aware of ALL of the discriminatory stuff in the States regarding who could become a State Elector-Voter — sex, age, citizen, taxpayer, literacy, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Thus the demand for univeral suffrage – adult male U.S.A. citizens in 14th Amdt, Sec. 2.
The 40th Congress in Jan-Feb 1869 had a major panic after the close election of Prez Grant in 1868.
The EVIL Elephants made NO effort to enforce 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 after 1868.
The 15th Amdt was written to get Elephant black voters in the marginal NORTHERN States — many who were ex-Union Army and Navy vets of the Civil War.
i.e. MOST of the VRA is blatantly UN-constitutional.
How about the DEATH penalty for violations of 15th Amdt, Sec. 1 — and even perhaps violations of 13th Amdt, Sec. 1 and 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 by the EVIL robot party hacks in the States ???
This stuff AIN’T atomic physics — except for legal history MORONS in Dumb City.
The U.S.A. is almost just as EVIL rotted as any of the EVIL rotted regimes in the Middle East — unequal ballot access laws, minority rule gerrymanders, party hack courts.