The Voting Rights Act at 40

The Voting Rights Act at 40: Past, Present and Future Challenges

The Voting Rights Act was enacted by Congress in 1965 in order to enforce the voting rights of minority citizens as guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution and it is widely viewed as one of the most successful civil rights statutes ever enacted. However, the past forty years have presented various challenges around voting rights issues, and in light of recent contested national elections as well as the upcoming reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, the struggle to ensure fairness in the electoral process in the United States continues.