Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Terr_ 605 days ago
> Congress has repeatedly tried and failed to adopt a new Section 5 coverage formula, but there are signs that it is inching ever closer to success. In January 2022 the House passed a package of democracy reforms that included the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would have updated the Section 5 coverage formula. Though the package commanded the support of a majority of senators, it narrowly failed due to the inability of the body to reform its archaic filibuster rules.

-- [0]

The act would have set pre-clearance to occur based on a pattern of recent violations [1], and also made election day a holiday, promoted early-voting etc... So you can guess which party was for it and which was doing the filibustering.

Related, the NVRA has another section about how states aren't supposed to mass-purge voters right before an election [2] (whether it's blatantly discrimiantory or not) but without pre-clearance it may lack teeth.

[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/prec...

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4

[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-virgi...