Voting Rights Act of 1965

1. A law passed at the time of the civil rights movement. It eliminated various devices, such as literacy tests, that had traditionally been used to restrict voting by black people. It authorized the enrollment of voters by federal registrars in states where fewer than fifty percent of the eligible voters were registered or voted. All such states were in the South.

Example Sentences

In reality, it may be the vehicle by which the Roberts court’s conservative supermajority will end what is left of the storied Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is the best possible vehicle for challenges to racial discrimination in voting practices.

From Slate

And although it may sound grandiose, Congress can enact just such a multimember-district, cumulative voting model: The Constitution grants that the body “may at any time” enact voting regulations, something it has done occasionally, most prominently with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

From Slate

Now, however, the efforts of Texas and California are threatening that progress and pushing things “to a new low point,” he said — leaving some voters feeling disenfranchised and Wang worried about further erosion of voter protections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he said the conservative Supreme Court may be preparing to weaken.

From Los Angeles Times

Potentially the most important part of this plan hangs on the fate of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

From Salon

From poll taxes abolished by the 24th Amendment in 1964 to barriers dismantled by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, every step forward has been a fight against deliberate disenfranchisement.

From Los Angeles Times