Discriminatory Voting In The United States

With the 2016 election quickly approaching, voting is important. Especially, when you have someone like Donald Trump running for President. New voting laws are being presented which may cause controversy for voters, predominately minorities. Until the case of Shelby County v. Holder, it was much easier to block discriminatory voting laws. Most Southern states, with a history of passing discriminatory laws, were required to get preclearance (known as Section 5 under the Voting Rights Act) from the Justice Department before making any voting changes (Rosenthal, 2016). But in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, five Supreme Court justices disabled that requirement (Rosenthal, 2016). Since section 5 have been axed out, some states have rushed

Discrimination in voting, is not just limited to the southern states. Lawmakers in Ohio and Wisconsin, for example, have gone to great lengths to complicate voting for minorities (Rosenthal, 2016). It did not take long for these ridiculous laws to be passed. Some agree that having section 5 in the voting rights act is unconstitutional. Preclearance was a constitutional response to voter discrimination, but it was also unconstitutional to apply it to states based on past issues (Sensenbrenner, 2016). Thus, the law’s strongest protections have been rendered meaningless. Clearly they never heard of Tocqueville’s tyranny of the majority. The tyranny of the majority is when a dominant group uses its control of the government to abuse the rights of minority groups (Magstadt, p.78, 2015). Executing laws that place restrictions on minorities sounds all too familiar. Do some just turn a blind eye to what is written in our constitution? Not only is that written, but so is John Locke’s rule of law, or did we forget. The rule of law was written so that the power and discretion of government and its officials are restrained by a supreme set of neutral rules that prevent arbitrary and unfair action by the government (Magstadt, p.79, 2105). Unless there is a loophole within our governmental system, how can 5 Supreme Court justices make a decision to renounce section 5 of the Voting Rights Act? It is obvious that it is needed. We need it to keep certain states from discriminating against minorities. Again, it makes me question our government’s motives. It’s like smacking our equal protection rights in the face and saying here take this. With the 2016 election approaching quickly, we need as many votes as possible to keep people like trump from being