![]() This discrimination included impossible literacy tests, administered only to Black people and poor white people and devices like Mississippi’s notorious soap-bubble test, which required Black voters to correctly guess the number of bubbles in a bar of soap in order to vote. It created a “coverage formula” that applied to states and political subdivisions with a history of significant discrimination against Black voters in the 1960s and 1970s. The Voting Rights Act was enacted to ensure no citizen would be denied the right to vote because of race or color. The district judge disagreed, ruling that the act would stay in force. Shelby County, Ala., just south of Birmingham, sued then-Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court in the District of Columbia in April 2010, arguing parts of the Voting Rights Act were unconstitutional. The case’s legal underpinnings are somewhat complicated but worth tracing.
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