Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Issues Statement on 5th Anniversary of Shelby v. Holder

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 25, 2018

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the formula used in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional.

Washington, D.C. – Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee) issued the following statement today on the fifth anniversary of the landmark Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court 5-4 decision, which gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

“In the five years since the decision in Shelby, some of our worst fears have been realized. States have taken advantage of the leeway given to them to implement voting practices and procedures that bear disproportionately on the voting rights of minority populations. These range from restrictive voter registration procedures to polling place closures to purging of voter rolls to onerous voter identification requirements. And these are only the actions we know about. The loss of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act also meant the loss of notice of insidious acts of voter suppression and an opportunity to stop them before they took effect. Now, as much as ever, we need robust statutory protections of the right to vote.

“Today, we call on Congress to take overdue action to restore the Voting Rights Act, particularly in the wake of widespread voter suppression efforts that we have seen across the country.”

In order to ensure that all eligible voters are able to exercise their rights at the ballot box when faced with challenges to voting, Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter coalition led by the Lawyers’ Committee, will have the 866-OUR VOTE (866-687-8686) Election Protection hotline live on all Primary Days and on Election Day in November. The hotline is available year round for voters to ask questions and to report suspected voter suppression activities.

For more information on Shelby, please click here.