Voting Rights Act

American  

[voh-ting rahyts akt] / ˈvoʊ tɪŋ ˈraɪts ˌækt /

noun

U.S. Government.

1. a law enacted in 1965 that prohibited racially discriminatory voting practices, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, appointed federal examiners to facilitate voter registration among members of minority groups, and established federal oversight over election administration. VRA

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Example Sentences

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended segregation and granted voting rights to people of all races — signed by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Southern Democrat who broke away from the party’s history to spearhead progressive domestic policy — the decades that followed were ridden with manipulations of the electoral system.

From Los Angeles Times

They cited statements by some state legislators that the new map complied with the Voting Rights Act by preserving the prior map’s majority-majority districts.

From The Wall Street Journal

In practice, this power has taken the form of national voting regulation laws like the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the “motor voter act” because it established the ability to register to vote when receiving a state driver’s license.

From Salon

The map was a product of a court order, that forced Louisiana to redraw an earlier map so it would be in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and specifically Section 2, which prohibits state and local governments from enacting laws that result in the “denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”

From Salon

Levitt said that arguments like the one before the Supreme Court are, crucially, not built in relationship with the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act, but against a “caricature” of those laws.

From Salon