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Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020

Have some states made it harder to vote since a key 2013 Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act?

Allegra Taylor, Gigafact
yes

Within a year of a 2013 Supreme Court decision making a major change to voting-rights law, seven states enacted new rules tightening voting requirements.

The Court invalidated parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring "pre-clearance" from federal authorities for changes in local voting laws. Provisions singled out nine states, mostly in the South, and counties and townships elsewhere.

Conservatives laud the decision for removing a no-longer warranted intrusion into states' rights. The Brennan Center, a non-partisan think tank, says the outcome "opened the floodgates to laws restricting voting throughout the United States," and that by 2018 previously covered states "purged voters off their rolls at a significantly higher rate than non-covered jurisdictions."

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