The Supreme Court has dealt a blow to voting rights in this country:
A deeply divided Supreme Court has limited use of a key provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating the key enforcement provision that applies to all or parts of 15 states with past history of voter discrimination.
The case involved Section 5, which gives federal authorities open-ended oversight of states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered areas -- which include all or parts of 16 states -- must be "pre-cleared" with Washington.
After the provision was reauthorized by Congress in 2006 for another 25 years, counties in Alabama and North Carolina filed suit, saying the monitoring was burdensome and unwarranted.
Continue reading at CNN. We will have more on this story a bit later.
