When the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed one of the primary tools to prevent discrimination was Section 5. This section was meant to “cover” certain parts of the country so that they did not come up with new ways of disenfranchising black voters.
Under this law the covered areas needed to seek preclearance from the US Department of Justice prior to making any change in voting procedures. This means that after an ordinance or administrative procedure and background material must be submitted to the Justice Department as soon as possible after it is passed.
When the VRA was updated in 1970 the test of what states or other political jurisdictions were covered was based on two criteria
- The state or jurisdiction had a barrier in place in 1968 as a prerequisite to voting
- Less than 50% of the voting age population was registered to vote in 1968 or less than 50% of the voting age population voted for President in November 1968
Some entire states (mostly southern) as well as some counties and cities were covered by this test. You can see the list here.
In California we have four counties that are Section 5 counties. They are Monterey, Merced, Kings, and Yuba. So why would they be covered? Yuba County was actually covered twice.
The reality is that they have been “covered” by this section of federal law because in the late 1960s and early 1970s thousands of military personnel were being sent to Vietnam many of them were stationed at Fort Ord (Monterey County), Castle AFB (Merced County), Lemore NAS (Kings County) and Beale AFB (Yuba County). The military personnel were voting age but not registered to vote in those counties. If registered, they were registered back home.
So since 1965 these counties have had to go through preclearance with the US Justice Department whenever they have made changes to their election process. This includes voting machines, redistricting, or anything else that involves elections.
None of these four counties really fit the intent of counties that should have been on the bad list for voting rights. The numbers just worked out that way. In fact, Merced also fell under this jurisdiction as a result of English only election material and a literacy test that was repealed six days late.
So for the last four decades these counties have had to deal with additional legal burdens in their voting process. So in a time of tightened financial resources local governments are seeking to save money anywhere.
So how does a county or state get off the list of VRA bad actors? There is a bailout provision that allows a state or county that has complied with the VRA for the last 10 years to be removed from the list. So far the State of New Mexico and Fairfax, VA have been part of the limited group that have taken advantage of this provision. You can see the whole list here.
Well now Merced County is taking a shot at it too. You can see their information in seeking the VRA bailout here.
In a time when businesses are seeking regulatory relief from state government this is an example of a local government entity seeking relief from federal regulations as well. Merced may be the first but I would be surprised if the other counties did not make this same effort.