Analysis: Supreme Court’s ruling against Voting Rights Act flawed, weak

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The Supreme Court’s ruling that some parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are unconstitutional are poorly thought through, Eric Posner writes in a commentary for Slate.

The sections, intended to protect minority populations in some parts of the country, required some states and counties to run any changes to election law past the Department of Justice before they went into effect. This would prevent last-minute laws that might discriminate against minorities.

The court ruled that the federal government could not single out some states for greater scrutiny from the federal government, saying states had “equal sovereignty” to each other. That’s a concept is “newly invented,” Posner says, and it still doesn’t explain the court’s ruling.

See the commentary at Slate.