The Voting Rights Act and the Enduring Challenge of Participation

Abstract

Underlying both the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder and congressional inaction in renewing the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is the claim that the Voting Rights Act has already succeeded and is therefore no longer necessary. These claims ignore enduring challenges to voter participation and miss the steep drop off in participation by historically excluded groups in mid-term elections and the persistent participation gap for Latinos in all elections, especially in jurisdictions that have historically been covered by the VRA. In responding to these enduring challenges of voter participation, universal approaches to expanding voter registration and participation are increasingly important. Fifty-one million eligible Americans still cannot participate in voting because they are not registered to vote, and these potentially eligible voters are disproportionately African American and Latino. Universal responses to expanding voter registration such as Election Day Registration and automatic voter registration contribute to reducing racial gaps in voting in part because they facilitate participation by younger voters. While more universal approaches to expanding voter registration and voter participation cannot recapture every important dimension of the unique architecture of the Voting Rights Act, they nonetheless hold enormous potential to build on the underlying goal of the VRA to expand voter participation among historically excluded communities within the United States.