Legislative Background on Voting Rights
Recent Action in the Congress on Election Discrimination
The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was landmark legislation enacted to prohibit election practices that denied citizens the right to vote on the basis of race, ending such voter qualification devices as literacy tests and poll taxes. A key provision, Section 5, forced jurisdictions with histories of voter discrimination to submit any changes in their election laws for Federal approval before they could take effect. The legislation passed the House 333 to 85 and the Senate 77 to 19. The votes split on geographic lines, with most Members of Congress from southern States opposing it. President Lyndon Johnson signed the…
