The Right to Vote: A Broken Promise and How to Fix It

This thesis discusses the current status of voting rights in the United States. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to eliminate various “tests and devices” that disenfranchised minority voters. The Act received bipartisan support and was reauthorized on four separate occasions between 1965 and 2006. In 2013, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder struck down Section 4(b), a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. After the Court made this decision, states across the country began enacting second-generation voting barriers that have made it more difficult for minority citizens to vote. This is a direct result of the racial fears that emerged after the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president. The purpose of this paper is to argue that Shelby County v. Holder was wrongly decided, and that Congress must act immediately to restore Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act.