Weakening the Voting Rights Act makes it substantially harder to challenge and remedy racially discriminatory electoral maps

What's this about?

People disagree about whether weakening the Voting Rights Act makes unfair voting maps harder to fight.

The claim does not say every legal path disappears.

What supporters say

• Section 2 cases need lots of facts, expert help, time, and money to show a map breaks the law.
• Later court rules may limit which claims people can bring under the law.
• Courts may struggle to tell apart race-based goals from party-based goals when map makers draw lines.
• Without a check before a map starts, people must wait, then sue after harm may begin.

What critics say

• Section 2 cases still win sometimes, and courts can order new maps that give voters a fairer chance.
• The nation’s basic law still lets people challenge unfair maps, even when the Voting Rights Act cannot help.

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show who is right; the strength of the proof matters more.

The bottom line

The evidence leans toward the claim: losing the early check makes map fights slower, costlier, and harder to prove.

We know this makes challenges harder, but we are not sure exactly how much harder.

The claim is that weakening the Voting Rights Act does not eliminate every way to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps, but it makes those challenges slower, costlier and harder to prove. The evidence favors that comparative conclusion, though it does not precisely measure how much harder challenges have become.

The case for

The strongest argument is the loss of federal preclearance, which once required certain jurisdictions to obtain approval before putting voting changes, including redistricting plans, into effect. The Supreme Court’s decision in *Shelby County* invalidated the formula identifying which jurisdictions were covered, effectively suspending that preventive system. (see Figure 1) 1

That change moved the process from prevention to litigation after a map is adopted. Challengers must now bring a case and prove that the map violates the law, potentially only after it has shaped an election or affected the electoral process. This is a major practical difference: a system that screens maps in advance is not equivalent to one that relies on individual lawsuits afterward.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act remains available, but it demands extensive evidence. Under *Thornburg v. Gingles*, plaintiffs challenging vote dilution generally must show that a minority community could form a reasonably configured district, that its voters are politically cohesive and that majority voters usually defeat its preferred candidates. They must also show unequal political access, rather than simply pointing to a racial disparity. 2

That proof can require considerable money, time and expert work. Courts may ultimately order a replacement map, but the process is more fact-intensive than advance review. The evidence therefore supports the view that losing preclearance creates a meaningful burden, even if it does not close the courthouse doors.

The reach of statutory challenges may also be narrower than before. In *Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee*, the Supreme Court set out guideposts for Section 2 results claims and upheld Arizona voting restrictions. The case involved voting rules rather than redistricting, so it is not direct evidence about map challenges. It does, however, suggest that a narrower reading of Section 2 could reduce the range of claims available to challengers. 3

The case against

The weakening of one enforcement tool has not ended successful challenges. In *Allen v. Milligan*, the Supreme Court upheld a finding that Alabama’s congressional map likely violated Section 2 because Black voters had another reasonably configured district where they could elect a candidate of their choice. *LULAC v. Perry* similarly found that a Texas congressional plan weakened Latino voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidate. These cases show that litigation can still produce a corrected or replacement map. 5

Constitutional claims provide another independent safeguard. In *Cooper v. Harris*, the Supreme Court struck down North Carolina districts in which race improperly predominated in the mapmaking process and rejected the state’s stated justification. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments therefore remain available even without Section 5 preclearance. 6

But these protections do not recreate advance federal review. Constitutional claims can require substantial factual and legal proof, while the Supreme Court has ruled in *Rucho v. Common Cause* that partisan-gerrymandering claims are beyond the reach of federal courts. When partisan and racial motives overlap, separating them can also be difficult. 4

The bottom line

The evidence favors the claim, with high confidence that weakening the Voting Rights Act makes it harder to challenge and remedy racially discriminatory maps. The strongest support comes from the direct loss of preventive review and the documented factual demands of Section 2 litigation.

That conclusion is comparative, not absolute. Successful Section 2 and constitutional cases show that remedies remain possible. They do not show that those remedies arrive as quickly, cover as many maps or require as few resources as preclearance once did.

There is no systematic before-and-after data measuring success rates, litigation times, costs or the speed of remedies. As a result, the direction of the effect is clearer than its exact size. The key uncertainty is not whether alternative legal claims exist, but how often, how quickly and at what cost they can substitute for preventive review in different jurisdictions.