Voting Discrimination: Common Forms, Enforcement, and Reporting

Voting discrimination is any law, policy, or practice that denies or limits a person’s right to vote based on race, color, sex, age, disability, language, or similar protected characteristics. It is prohibited by a group of constitutional amendments ratified between 1870 and 1971, by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and by several related federal statutes, though a run of Supreme Court decisions since 2013 has narrowed how those laws are enforced. Understanding what still protects you — and what no longer does — is the starting point for recognizing a violation and reporting it.

The Legal Foundation

Four constitutional amendments do the structural work. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) bars denying the vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Nineteenth (1920) extended that protection to women. The Twenty-Fourth (1964) banned poll taxes in federal elections, and a 1966 Supreme Court ruling extended the ban to state and local elections. The Twenty-Sixth (1971) lowered the voting age to eighteen.¹

Those amendments set principles. Federal statutes do the enforcing. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted after the violent suppression of marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, remains the most important. At the time, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and intimidation were keeping Black voter registration far below white registration across the South.²

Several other federal laws fill in specific gaps:

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the “Motor Voter” law) requires states to offer voter registration at driver’s license offices, public assistance offices, and by mail.
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires every polling place to have at least one accessible voting system for voters with disabilities.
The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 requires accessible polling places for federal elections.
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act protects military and overseas voters.¹

What the Voting Rights Act Protects

Three sections of the VRA do most of the day-to-day work.

Section 2 prohibits any voting practice or procedure that denies or abridges the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. It applies nationwide, and both individuals and the Department of Justice can bring suit to challenge discriminatory laws.²

Section 203 requires jurisdictions that cross certain demographic thresholds to provide election materials and assistance in minority languages. A jurisdiction is covered if more than 5 percent of its voting-age citizens are limited-English-proficient members of a single language minority group with an illiteracy rate above the national average, or if that group exceeds 10,000 voting-age citizens with a similarly elevated rate.³ Coverage is triggered by demographic data alone; no proof of intentional discrimination is needed. The most recent Census Bureau determinations, released in December 2021, identified 331 jurisdictions plus three states (California, Florida, and Texas, for statewide Hispanic coverage) that must provide language assistance, together containing more than 24 million voting-age citizens. Covered languages include Spanish, several Asian languages, and numerous American Indian and Alaska Native languages. The provisions are scheduled to expire in August 2032.⁴

Section 208, added in 1982, lets any voter who needs help because of blindness, disability, or an inability to read or write bring an assistant of their choice into the voting booth. The only people excluded are the voter’s employer or union representative. Courts have extended this protection to limited-English-proficient voters, and unlike Section 203 it applies everywhere without demographic triggers.³

Congress reauthorized and expanded the VRA in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006. The 1975 reauthorization extended protections to language minority groups, including American Indians, Asian Americans, Alaska Natives, and people of Spanish heritage. The 2006 reauthorization passed unanimously in the Senate.⁵

How Courts Have Narrowed Those Protections

The VRA on paper and the VRA in practice have grown further apart over the past decade.

From 1965 until 2013, Section 5 of the Act required jurisdictions with histories of voting discrimination to get federal approval — called “preclearance” — before changing their voting rules. The coverage formula that identified those jurisdictions was in Section 4(b). The gap between white and Black voter registration rates in covered states narrowed from nearly 30 percentage points in the early 1960s to roughly 8 points within a decade.²

In June 2013, the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder on a 5–4 vote, striking down the Section 4(b) coverage formula as unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the formula relied on decades-old data with “no logical relation to the present day.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent compared ending preclearance to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”⁶⁷⁸⁹

With preclearance disabled, Section 2 became the primary enforcement tool. The Court then narrowed it, too. In Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), a 6–3 majority upheld two Arizona restrictions and set out five factors courts should weigh when evaluating “time, place, and manner” voting rules under Section 2 — including the size of the burden, whether the rule departs from practices common in 1982, and the strength of the state’s justification. The Court made clear that “mere inconvenience” is not enough to establish a Section 2 violation.¹⁰

In April 2026, the Court decided Louisiana v. Callais, which voting rights advocates and legal scholars have described as effectively gutting what remained of Section 2 in redistricting cases.¹¹ The 6–3 ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito, rewrote three parts of the test plaintiffs must meet to prove a Section 2 violation: alternative maps offered by plaintiffs cannot use race as a criterion, plaintiffs must separate racial bloc voting from partisan preference with statistical analysis, and courts must focus on present-day intentional discrimination rather than historical patterns.¹² In states where race and party affiliation are tightly correlated, that combination of requirements is, as analysts at SCOTUSblog put it, functionally “impossible” to satisfy.¹³ Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, argued the ruling effectively returned Section 2 to its pre-1982 state, when proving intentional discrimination was “nearly impossible.”¹⁴

Within hours of the Callais ruling, Florida passed a new congressional map that diluted Black and Hispanic voting power. Louisiana and Tennessee halted ongoing elections to redraw maps, and Alabama moved to reverse a court-ordered map that had been in place for two years.¹⁵

There is also a live question about who can even bring a Section 2 case. In November 2023, the Eighth Circuit held in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment that private parties — voters and voting rights organizations — cannot sue under Section 2 at all, only the Attorney General can. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits have ruled the other way. Private plaintiffs in some cases may still proceed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but that pathway is contested.¹⁶

Common Forms of Voting Discrimination

Beyond redistricting, several practices continue to restrict ballot access, often falling most heavily on voters of color, voters with disabilities, language minorities, and low-income voters.

Strict Voter ID Laws

Thirty-six states impose some form of identification requirement at the polls, with seven requiring strict photo ID. More than 21 million U.S. citizens lack government-issued photo identification, and roughly one in four voting-age Black Americans lacks such ID.¹⁷ Research links strict ID laws to a larger racial turnout gap, reducing turnout by more than 2.5 percentage points in presidential elections since the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s ID law in Crawford v. Marion County.¹⁸ A federal court struck down a North Carolina voter ID law for targeting Black voters with “surgical precision.”⁹

Voter Roll Purges

States are allowed to remove ineligible registrants, but the National Voter Registration Act requires that any systematic removal program be completed at least 90 days before a federal election, be uniform and nondiscriminatory, and comply with the VRA.¹⁹ After Shelby County, purge rates increased sharply in formerly preclearance-covered jurisdictions, often in areas with higher concentrations of voters of color.⁹

Virginia offers a recent example. During the 2024 cycle, the governor directed daily systematic purges during the 90-day quiet period, using DMV data that misidentified naturalized citizens as noncitizens because the records did not reflect recent citizenship changes. Voters who failed to respond to a single notice within 14 days were removed. A coalition of voting rights groups sued, and the case settled in April 2026, ending the program.²⁰

Polling Place Closures and Long Lines

Counties formerly covered by preclearance closed at least 1,688 polling places between 2012 and 2018 with no federal review required.⁹ Counties with larger minority populations tend to have fewer polling sites and fewer poll workers per voter, producing longer wait times that cellphone tracking data has shown fall disproportionately on voters of color.¹⁸

Felony Disenfranchisement

An estimated four million Americans are currently barred from voting because of felony convictions, with 70 percent of them living in their communities rather than in prison. Only Maine and Vermont place no voting restrictions on anyone with a felony conviction. One in 22 voting-age Black Americans is disenfranchised — more than three times the rate for non-Black Americans. In Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Tennessee, over 10 percent of the Black voting-age population is barred from voting. Florida and Tennessee lead the nation overall, with more than 6 percent of their total adult populations disenfranchised.²¹

Since 2016, the total number of disenfranchised Americans has fallen by about 31 percent as states have reformed their laws, though progress is uneven. The inability to pay court-ordered fines and fees often blocks restoration — a requirement critics call a modern poll tax.²¹ The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that blanket disenfranchisement of people who have completed their sentences does not meet the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.²²

Barriers Facing Native American Voters

Native American and Alaska Native voters face a distinct set of obstacles. A study of voter records from 2012 to 2022 across 21 states found an average 11-percentage-point turnout gap between voters on federally recognized tribal lands and voters off tribal lands, rising to 15 points in presidential elections. Members of the Fort Peck tribe in Montana, for example, were required to travel 30 to 60 miles to vote after being denied a satellite election office on the reservation. Many reservations lack standard residential street addresses, which conflicts with registration systems and voter ID laws. Tribal identification cards are not accepted in all states, even where they are legally valid, and inadequate postal service on reservations undermines mail-in voting.²³

Inaccessible Polling Places and Ballots

Federal law requires that every step of voting be accessible to people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires state and local governments to ensure full and equal opportunity for voters with disabilities, covering polling site selection, election websites, and ballot access. The Help America Vote Act requires at least one accessible voting system per polling place for private and independent voting. Election officials must provide auxiliary aids such as large-print materials, Braille ballots, sign language interpreters, or qualified readers.²⁴ For mail-in or absentee voting, states must offer alternative formats and, in some jurisdictions, accessible remote ballot-marking systems.²⁵

Compliance is uneven. In 2020, 18 percent of voters with disabilities reported difficulty voting in person, and nearly two-thirds of polling places contained at least one physical impediment to access.¹⁷

Missing Language Assistance

In jurisdictions covered by Section 203, failure to provide ballots, instructions, and in-person assistance in the required language is itself a federal violation. And under Section 208, any voter who cannot read English well enough to vote independently can bring a person of their choice (other than an employer or union representative) into the booth to help — anywhere in the country.³

Federal Enforcement Today

The Department of Justice’s posture on voting discrimination shifted sharply in early 2025. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section was redirected toward preventing “voter fraud” and ensuring “only American citizens vote,” reflecting priorities in Executive Order 14248 issued in March 2025. The DOJ dismissed or withdrew from nearly all major voting rights cases inherited from the prior administration, including challenges to Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law, Georgia’s omnibus election law (SB 202), voter purge programs in Virginia and Alabama, and Texas redistricting maps. Of 14 Section 2 cases identified at the start of 2025, the DOJ remained a party in only three by mid-year.²⁶²⁷

State Voting Rights Acts

As federal protection has contracted, states have begun filling the gap. As of mid-2026, ten states have passed their own voting rights acts: California (2002), Washington (2018), Oregon (2019), Virginia (2021), New York (2022), Connecticut (2023), Minnesota (2024), Colorado (2025), Illinois, and Maryland.²⁸

These state laws generally parallel the federal VRA but offer practical advantages for voters: an explicit private right of action in state court, state-level preclearance systems in several, lower evidentiary burdens for plaintiffs, and expanded language access beyond federal minimums.²⁹ One important limit: state VRAs generally reach local and state-legislative districts, not congressional redistricting.²⁸

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Texas have introduced or are considering their own voting rights bills.³⁰

At the federal level, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would establish a new preclearance coverage formula based on a rolling 25-year look-back of voting rights violations. It was reintroduced in the House as H.R. 14 on March 5, 2025, by Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama with 220 cosponsors, and a Senate companion was introduced on July 29, 2025. As of mid-2026, the House bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee with no further action reported.³¹³²

How to Report Voting Discrimination

If you experience or witness voting discrimination, several channels are available, and more than one may apply at once.

Emergencies first. If there is violence, a threat, or voter intimidation at a polling place, call 911 first, then report the incident to the DOJ or your local FBI field office.
The Department of Justice accepts reports of civil rights violations — including discrimination based on race, language, or disability — through its online portal at civilrights.justice.gov. The Voting Section can also be reached at 800-253-3931.³³
Disability-related complaints can be filed through the ADA information line at 800-514-0301.²⁴
State and local election offices are the first point of contact for jurisdiction-specific problems — a missing accessible machine, a polling place change you weren’t told about, a provisional-ballot dispute.³⁴
Voting rights organizations such as the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Brennan Center, and the Campaign Legal Center take complaints and can connect voters to legal help, which matters more now that the DOJ has withdrawn from most voting rights litigation.

Write down what happened while it is fresh: the date, time, location, poll workers’ names if you can get them, what you were told, and the names and contact information of any witnesses. If you were turned away, ask for a provisional ballot before leaving. Those details are what makes a report actionable.

1
USA.gov. Voting Rights
2
Brennan Center for Justice. The Voting Rights Act Explained
3
UC Berkeley School of Law. Language Assistance Under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act
4
U.S. Census Bureau. Census Bureau Releases 2021 Section 203 Determinations
5
U.S. Department of Justice. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act
6
Justia. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529
7
U.S. Department of Justice. About Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
8
Brennan Center for Justice. The Effects of Shelby County v. Holder
9
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Shelby County v. Holder Impact
10
Congressional Research Service. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee
11
Campaign Legal Center. The U.S. Supreme Court Has Eviscerated the Voting Rights Act
12
Supreme Court of the United States. Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___
13
SCOTUSblog. How Callais Broke the Voting Rights Act
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SCOTUSblog. In Major Voting Rights Act Case, Supreme Court Strikes Down Redistricting Map
15
Brennan Center for Justice. Congress Must Respond to Callais
16
Harvard Law Review. Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment
17
ACLU. Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020
18
Brennan Center for Justice. The Impact of Voter Suppression on Communities of Color
19
U.S. Department of Justice. NVRA List Maintenance Guidance
20
Campaign Legal Center. Protecting Virginians from Last-Minute Illegal Voter Purges
21
The Sentencing Project. Locked Out 2024
22
ACLU. Voting Rights Resource
23
Brennan Center for Justice. Study Finds Extensive Barriers Restrict Native Americans’ Voting
24
U.S. Department of Justice. Protecting Voter Rights
25
Vote.gov. Guide to Voting: Disability
26
Just Security. Trump Administration Dismissal of Voting Rights Lawsuits
27
Brennan Center for Justice. The Justice Department Is Shirking Its Responsibility to Voters
28
National Conference of State Legislatures. State Voting Rights Acts
29
Campaign Legal Center. Protecting the Freedom to Vote Through State Voting Rights Acts
30
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. State Voting Rights Acts
31
U.S. Congress. H.R. 14 – John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025
32
Senator Dick Durbin. Durbin, Warnock Reintroduce the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
33
U.S. Department of Justice. Voting Resources
34
U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Other National Contact Information