If We Lose Our Voting Rights? Part-3

Photo Description:
The image represents the author’s vision of what comes next—not just marching, but mass mobilization. It portrays a powerful uprising of Black Americans reclaiming their right to shape the future. If the laws can be bent for the powerful, they can be broken by the oppressed. United, we organize—not in protest alone, but in creation of a new future for ourselves and our families.

Some Progress Just Isn't Enough — Everything Is Slipping Away

By the dawn of the 1990s, it seemed the long struggle for Black political equality had finally entered a new era. From courtrooms to campaign trails, progress was measurable and visible. Black representation in Congress grew, new leaders like Douglas Wilder and Carol Moseley Braun broke barriers, and the Voting Rights Act still stood as a shield against suppression. Yet beneath that progress, cracks were forming. Gerrymandering cases, contested elections, and new voter ID laws revealed that the struggle had simply evolved — from poll taxes and literacy tests to paperwork, purges, and power games hidden in plain sight.

The rise of Barack Obama symbolized the high point of Black voter participation — and, paradoxically, ignited a backlash that would soon unravel decades of protection. In this third part of our series, If We Lose Our Voting Rights?, we trace how optimism turned to unease as courts narrowed civil rights laws and states quietly built new barriers. The victories of the civil rights generation met the cynicism of a new century, setting the stage for Shelby County v. Holder — a ruling that would change everything.

New Challenges and New Frontiers (1990s–2000s)

Shaw v. Reno (1993) – Racial Gerrymandering: After the 1990 census, states created several majority-Black congressional districts under DOJ guidance to remedy dilution (for example, North Carolina drew two Black-majority districts, one of which was a very irregular shape). The Supreme Court’s 1993 Shaw v. Reno decision held that while creating majority-minority districts is permissible, race cannot be the predominant factor in drawing bizarre district lines. This introduced a complex line of cases in the 1990s scrutinizing “racial gerrymanders.” In practice, Shaw curtailed some of the most egregious gerrymanders designed to concentrate minority voters, but it also made map-drawing a tightrope: mapmakers had to consider race to comply with the VRA, yet not too much. Despite these constraints, Black representation in Congress continued to increase through the ’90s as more districts allowed Black communities to elect candidates of their choice.
First Black Statewide Officials: The 1990s saw milestones in Black political leadership. In 1989, Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the first African American elected governor of any state since Reconstruction. In 1992, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois became the first Black woman U.S. Senator in history. These breakthroughs reflected the fruition of decades of Black voting strength and alliance-building.
2000 Election and Voting Controversies: The disputed 2000 presidential election highlighted new voting rights concerns. In Florida – where the election hinged on a few hundred votes – scrutiny revealed that flawed “felon” purge lists wrongfully disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters (disproportionately Black). Also, antiquated voting technology (e.g. punch-card ballots) in heavily Black counties led to high rates of disqualified ballots. The fiasco led to the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which provided funds to modernize voting equipment and required provisional ballots, among other reforms. It wasn’t a racial justice law per se, but it aimed to ensure every vote is counted, which had clear implications for minority voters who often faced the worst voting infrastructure.
Voter ID Laws – A New Wave: In the 2000s, a number of states (often outside the traditional South) began enacting strict photo ID requirements for voting, purportedly to prevent (extremely rare) voter impersonation fraud. Georgia (2005) and Indiana (2005) passed early photo ID laws. The Supreme Court, in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, accepting the state’s asserted interest in preventing fraud despite little evidence of any actual fraud problem. While Crawford did not involve racial claims, voting rights advocates noted that such ID laws disproportionately impact Black, Latino, and low-income voters who are less likely to possess the specific IDs and more likely to face barriers obtaining them. The stage was set for battles over voter ID and other subtler suppression tactics, especially once federal oversight would be weakened.
2006 VRA Reauthorization: In July 2006, President George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act’s expiring provisions (such as Section 5 preclearance) after Congress approved it nearly unanimously [41]. By this time, the VRA was widely regarded as essential, and Congress amassed a 15,000-page record documenting ongoing voting discrimination to justify the extension. Notably, Congress found that DOJ had blocked scores of discriminatory changes since the last reauthorization, and that tactics like racial gerrymandering, annexations, poll place changes, and voter purges were still being used in some places to dilute minority votes. Ironically, this overwhelming bipartisan support and extensive record would become crucial in later court battles.
Election of Barack Obama (2008): The election of the first Black president was a watershed for Black voting power. Black voter turnout hit a record high in 2008, and again in 2012 when Obama sought re-election. In fact, Black turnout (66.2%) exceeded white turnout (64.1%) in the 2012 election – the first time on record this had ever happened [42]. This surge was hailed as a triumph of the civil rights movement’s legacy. However, it also fueled a narrative among some conservatives that extraordinary measures like Section 5 were no longer needed. Chief Justice John Roberts would later cite the 2012 turnout statistic as evidence that “things had changed in the South” – even though that was a temporary peak [43]. Still, the Obama era demonstrated how far Black voters had come: in states like North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, huge Black turnouts made elections highly competitive. Yet it also provoked new strategies by those seeking partisan advantage, often at the expense of minority voters.

The Shelby Era: Backsliding and Voter Suppression (2010s)

Resurgence of State Restrictions (2011–2012): After 2010’s midterm elections gave conservatives control of many state legislatures, a wave of restrictive voting laws swept the nation. In 2011 alone, state lawmakers introduced a record number of voting restrictions, including stricter photo ID requirements, cutbacks to early voting, and new obstacles to voter registration drives [44]. Many of these measures explicitly targeted practices used by minority voters. For example, Florida in 2011 cut back early voting days and restricted voter registration drives – moves that civil rights groups noted would disproportionately affect Black voters, who heavily utilized Sunday “Souls to the Polls” voting and community voter drives [45] [46]. Several of these laws in states like Texas, South Carolina, and Florida were blocked or delayed by the Justice Department using the VRA’s Section 5 preclearance powers [47]. Section 5 stood as a guardian — between 2010 and 2013, DOJ issued at least 18 objections to voting changes in states with histories of discrimination, preventing implementation of laws found to harm minority voters.
Shelby County v. Holder (2013): On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down the VRA’s preclearance coverage formula in Shelby County v. Holder, neutering Section 5. The Court acknowledged that voting discrimination still existed but argued that the formula (which covered jurisdictions mostly in the South) was outdated, partly pointing to higher Black voter registration and turnout in recent years [43]. The decision did not formally repeal Section 5, but without the coverage formula, no jurisdiction was required to seek preclearance unless Congress enacted a new formula (which it has not, as of 2025). In effect, Shelby freed dozens of states and counties with the deepest histories of voter suppression from federal oversight [48]. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, comparing the decision to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you’re not getting wet.”
Immediate Fallout – “Unleashing” Suppression: States wasted no time. Within hours of Shelby, Texas and Mississippi announced their long-pending strict photo ID laws (previously blocked under Section 5) would go into effect [49]. North Carolina’s legislature, which had been waiting for Shelby, quickly passed an omnibus bill (HB 589) that enacted a stringent voter ID requirement, cut a week off early voting, ended same-day registration, and barred out-of-precinct ballots and pre-registration for teens [50]. Lawmakers in NC had even requested data on racial voting patterns and then crafted the bill to eliminate methods disproportionately used by Black voters (like Sunday voting and same-day registration) [52]. The Fourth Circuit later observed that the law “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.” It was struck down in 2016 as intentionally discriminatory [53].
Polling Place Closures: Another quieter trend accelerated post-Shelby: local officials in formerly covered areas began closing or relocating polling sites, often in minority neighborhoods. A comprehensive study found that between 2012 and 2018, nearly 1,688 polling places were closed in jurisdictions once covered by Section 5 [54]. These closures – almost 20% of polling places in those areas – frequently led to longer lines and greater difficulty voting, which disproportionately impacted Black communities. For example, Texas alone closed 750 polling locations after Shelby [55].
Widening Turnout Gaps: The consequences of Shelby became evident in voter participation data. In 2012, Black turnout had momentarily surpassed white turnout in several key states. But by 2016, after Shelby and the introduction of new hurdles, Black turnout nationally fell approximately 7 percentage points (from 66.6% in 2012 to 59.6% in 2016) [56], while white turnout ticked up slightly. By 2020, white turnout exceeded Black turnout in five of the six Southern states originally under preclearance, reversing the 2012 trend [57].
Attempts to Restore Voting Protections: In response to Shelby, lawmakers introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act (2014) and later the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (2019) to create a new formula for preclearance and strengthen protections. Despite bipartisan support, these efforts stalled in a divided Congress [58]. Congressman John Lewis called it a “moral obligation” to restore the act he had bled for in Selma. While federal fixes languished, advocacy groups turned to courts and state-level reforms to defend voting rights.

As the 2010s came to a close, the promise of equal access to the ballot hung by a thread. Decades of progress had led to unprecedented representation and political power—but also to renewed resistance. The dismantling of the Voting Rights Act’s core protections opened the floodgates for new suppression tactics disguised as “integrity” measures. What began as a slow erosion became a calculated rollback. And just as history has shown time and again, every advancement was met with a counterattack.

In the next part, we enter the present—an era when the tactics of disenfranchisement have grown more sophisticated, the courts more hostile, and the stakes higher than ever. From Florida’s modern poll tax to post-pandemic voting laws and the battles before today’s Supreme Court, we ask again: how close are we to losing the rights so many bled to secure?