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Part I: Social Science Perspectives
- Chapter 1 - Black-Majority Districts or Black Influence Districts? Evaluating the Representation of African Americans in the Wake of Georgia v. Ashcroft By Christian R. Grose
- Chapter 2 - Racial Redistricting and the Election of African-American County Supervisors in Mississippi
By David Lublin and Cheryl Lampkin
- Chapter 3 - More Information Requests and the Deterrent Effect of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
By Luis Ricardo Fraga and Maria Lizet Ocampo
- Chapter 4 - Transforming Votes into Victories: Turnout, Institutional Context, and Minority Representation in Local Politics - by By Zoltan Hajnal and Jessica Trounstine
- Chapter 5 - An Assessment of Racially Polarized Voting For and Against Latino Candidates
By Yishaiya Absoch, Matt A. Barreto, and Nathan D.Woods
- Chapter 6 - Majority-Minority Districts,Co-Ethnic Candidates, and Mobilization Effects
By Gary M. Segura and Nathan D. Woods
- Chapter 7 - Verifying Implementationof Language Provisions in the Voting Rights Act
By Michael Jones-Correa and Israel Waismel-Manor
Part II: Legal Perspectives
- Chapter 8 - Not Like the South? Regional Variation and Political Participation Through the Lens of Section 2
By Ellen Katz
- Chapter
9 - Saving Section 5: Reflections on Georgia v. Ashcroft and its Impact on the Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act By David J. Becker
- Chapter
10 - An Assessment of the Bailout Provisions of the Voting Rights Act
By J. Gerald Hebert
- Chapter
11 - Language Accommodation and the Voting Rights Act
By Angelo N. Ancheta
- Chapter
12 - Language Protections for All? Extending and Expanding the Language Protections of the Voting Rights Act
By Jocelyn Benson
Warren Institute, UC Berkeley School of Law, Announces Recommendations to Amend Voting Rights Act (5/2006)
The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity has released a report titled, “Voting Rights Act Reauthorization: Research-Based Recommendations to Improve Voting Access.” This report includes recommendations to amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to improve voters’ access to the franchise. Certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act, considered one of the most effective pieces of civil rights legislation,
are set to expire in 2007, and Congress is currently debating how to reauthorize them. The expiring provisions include
- requirements that certain jurisdictions obtain preclearance or permission prior to making any changes to their voting practices (“Section 5”);
- requirements that certain jurisdictions provide all election-related information in certain languages other than English (“Section 203”); and
- measures that allow the federal government to send observers to monitor polling place and vote-tallying activities in certain
jurisdictions.
Download the report "Voting Rights Act Authorization: Research-Based Recommendations to Improve Voting Access" (PDF)
View the press release
Voting Rights and Democratic Participation:
The Decade Ahead
Reauthorization of Sections 5 and 203 of the Voting Rights Act (8/2005)
The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided the single greatest legislative victory in the African-American struggle for political equality and democratic voice. The statute marked the beginning of an extended federal campaign to give effect to the rights contained in the Fifteenth Amendment and to make America live up to its promises of political liberty and freedom.
In 1975, the Act was amended to extend protection and guarantee voting rights to language minorities. Forty years and several reauthorizations later, the Act continues to embrace protections for both racial and language minority groups. It remains one of the nation's premier vehicles for advancing the cause of racial fairness in the electoral arena.
While several important provisions of the Act are permanent law, in 2007 several sections of the Act were set to expire unless reauthorized by the Congress. Portions of the Act set to expire included section 5, which requires that certain jurisdictions "preclear" all voting changes with the federal government prior to implementation, and section 203, which requires certain jurisdictions to provide election-related information in languages other than English.
In light of recently-announced constitutional principles restricting remedial civil rights legislation, reauthorizing the VRA demanded an ambitious examination of whether and how sections 5 and 203 remain vital to the enfranchisement of communities of color. To this end, the Warren Institute of the University of California at Berkeley solicited proposals for scholarship and commissioned a series of research and policy papers. Commissioned
research focused on the social science and legal questions that were likely to be of critical importance to public debate and policymaking around the congressional reauthorization of key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Finished products were made available to the public, the media, policy actors, civil rights organizations and to members of Congress.
To help guide this initiative, the Warren Institute assembled an extraordinary group of scholars and practitioners on the Voting Rights Research Advisory Board, all of whom share our confidence that superb scholarship can, if focused on the crucial questions, make a critical contribution to the renewal of and reinvigorated implementation of this foundational element of democracy and civil rights.
Download the full project description (PDF)
Download
the 2005 call for paper proposals (PDF)
Symposium: “Protecting Democracy: Using Research to Inform the Voting Rights Reauthorization Debate” (2/9/06)
The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the Institute for Governmental Studies at U.C. Berkeley co-sponsored a symposium on Thursday, February 9, 2006, titled Protecting Democracy: Using Research to Inform the Voting Rights Reauthorization Debate. The symposium was held at the U.C. Washington Center in Washington, DC, and brought together more than 50 leading voting rights experts from the academic, policy, and advocacy communities to discuss well over a dozen new studies addressing Section 5 and Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. While several important provisions of the Act are permanent, Section 5 and Section 203 were set to expire in 2007. Section 5 requires that certain jurisdictions “preclear” all proposed voting rights changes with the federal government prior to implementation, and Section 203 requires certain jurisdictions to provide election-related was crucial to further the goals of (1) linking the resources and expertise of academia with the experience and advocacy efforts information in languages other than English.
The symposium brought together academics, advocates, and practitioners to discuss the commissioned research and its real-world uses and implications. The symposium and research produced of practitioners, and (2) fostering consensus-building around the key issues in the debate, as well as assist in the development of an action agenda in preparation for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.
Following the symposium, on Friday, February 10, 2006, the Warren Institute and the California Institute for Federal Policy Research sponsored a congressional briefing with staff from both the House and Senate in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill. At the briefing, several voting rights experts and scholars from the February 9th symposium shared their research findings in presentations covering a broad range of topics, including: the deterrent role of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the impact of the bilingual provisions of Section 203, the significance of the Georgia v. Ashcroft decision on renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and judicial findings under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Warren Institute published the research studies prepared for the symposium in two phases. First, in order to inform the debate on reauthorization, the Warren Institute posted draft papers to its website via a password-protected page which was accessible to conference participants and congressional staff.
The Institute also worked with key congressional staff and advocacy organizations to incorporate the research into the congressional record for reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. Second, the Warren Institute published a volume of selected papers after a thorough peer-reviewed and final editing process. Additional papers are provided here:
Press Release: A
Preliminary Analysis of the Carter-Baker Election Reform Report: A "Bait and Switch" for Voters Hoping for Real Reform (9/19/05)
Today the Carter Ford Commission on Election Reform identified five important "pillars" to guide political leaders seeking to fix an electoral system sorely in need of repair. Ultimately, however, the Commission's report is a "bait-and-switch" for voters seeking real reform because of the Commission's failure to advocate for reforms that will significantly address many of the voting irregularities experienced in the 2004 election.
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