WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2021) US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday that the United States must revive and expand the voting rights act.
"We need to restore and expand the voting rights act... and continue to fight back against laws in many states engaged to suppress the right to vote while expanding access to the ballot box for all eligible voters," Biden said.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires US states to map districts in order to ensure that minority voters make up enough of a district to elect their chosen representatives. It also required Justice Department approval of any changes in voting laws and procedures in Southern US States with a history of preventing African-Americans from casting ballots.
On August 6, 1965, alongside Marlin Luther King and other civil rights leaders, US President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act which was designed to remove legal barriers across every state in the Union that prevented blacks from exercising their constitutional right to vote.
The move came at the height of the US Civil Rights Movement, the culmination of years of enduring brutality and demonstrations against racist policies in the southern states that deprived blacks of the right to vote as stipulated by the 15th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870.
The majority opinion of the Supreme Court in the 2013 Shelby v. Holder case argued that the 1965 Voting Rights Act was based on information that was four decades old and violated the principle of federalism and the equal sovereignty of each US state.
