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Jesus Mojica

History 121

Ochoa

November 6, 2018

Introduction

The Shelby county V. Holder, the United States V. Reese and the Ohio voter purge are Supreme Court cases which are concerned with the voting right in the United States. The United States being a federal state has to set out different voting rights in order to ensure that the voting processes are carried out efficiently in the state. These rights also define the voting in the different nations which fall under the United States federation. The three cases are therefore related since they are concerned with voting rights in the US. The Shelby county V. holder, 570 US 2 is concerned with a voting act which was passed back in the year 1965 requiring both the state and the local governments not to pass laws or voting policies that denied the American citizens their rights to vote in accordance to race among other differences among the citizens. The Supreme Court later took the case back in the year 2012 and was decided in the year 2013.

The united states V. Reese, 92 US 214 case on the other hand is a case whereby the us supreme court went ahead and interpreted the 15th amendment of the us constitution which was mainly that the citizens should not be restricted of suffrage due to their race, color as well as the fact that one is a slave. This case therefore was mainly restrictions of voters voting rights due to their various differences from the other citizens. The Ohio voter purge supreme court case lastly is mainly about voter’s suppression. It was presented in the Supreme Court back last year due to voter purging in that removing the voter’s registrations which are termed as outdated. This paper therefore explains in detail these three cases that are highly recognized in the United States Supreme Court.

Shelby County V. Holder

As mentioned before this case is mainly regarding the appeal by the Shelby County on the voting rights act which was passed back in 1965 in the American constitution. This case dwelled on two articles in the American constitution. The first article is the section 5 of the voting rights act which requires certain states or rather counties local governments to obtain the federal clearance before changing the voting practices in their areas. The other article is the section 4(b) of the voting rights act which states the jurisdictions of the clearance process and the basis of the local government’s history on voting discrimination. This information is contained in the coverage formula in this section of the voting rights act. The district and the court of appeal courts in USA upheld the constitutionality of the two sections of the voting acts back in 2006 and 2012. The district court had reauthorized the section 5 and also the continuing of the section 4(b) coverage formula back in 2006 while the court of appeal also agreed that the section 5 was justified and the section 4(b) coverage formula continued to outdo the constitutional congregate. The Supreme Court later in November 2012 granted to hear the case under the limited question of whether the decision of the congress to reauthorize the section 5 under the coverage formula in the section 4(b) was beyond its authority and hence was against the tenth amendment of the article iv of the united states constitution.

According to the oral arguments presented to the Supreme Court by various justices in the Supreme Court presented the reauthorization by the congress back in 2006 as unconstitutional and therefore suggested that the racial discrimination in the voting rights was prevalent. The Supreme Court therefore in may 2013 ruled on the section 4 (b) of the coverage formula being unconstitutional with a 5 to 4 vote on the Shelby county V. Holder. Five of the Supreme Court judges proposed that the section 4(b) article of the voting rights showed some level of racial discrimination in voting of different counties in the United States. The coverage formula was also ruled to be unconstitutional since it dwelled on 40 years ago data which was outdated and did not responsive to the current activities in the United States. The coverage formula was also termed by the Supreme Court ruling to be unresponsive to the current needs of the states or rather local governments in the counties as well the American citizens. The article was therefore impermissible of the constitutional federalism principles as well as equal sovereignty to the states in USA. However the Supreme Court did not over rule the section 5 of the voting rights act. Nevertheless this section dwelled much on the section 4(b) and therefore no jurisdiction would be passed since the section 4(b) had been considered unconstitutional. The Shelby County V. Holder 570 US 2 (2013) case therefore helped in curbing racial entitlement or rather discrimination in voting rights for some of the states in the united sates. This is mainly because years later after the Supreme Court ruling on this case most of the counties have adjusted their voting practices with most of them removing rations such as same day registration, pre registration for teens as well as online voting registration among other provisions. Many polling places also closed down in various states after the Supreme Court ruling on this case. Currently the states are not required to obtain federal clearance since various amendments that enable each American citizen to exercise their voting rights have been passed.

United States V. Reese

The United States V. Reese is a case ruled by the US Supreme Court back in the year (1876). This case is mainly based on the interpretation of the 15th amendment of the United States constitution. This amendment makes sure that the suffrage of the American citizens on their voting rights not being restricted due to their race or color. This case was the first case regarding the voting rights under the 15th amendment that the Supreme Court handled. The case was mainly regarding an electoral official from Kentucky who failed to register William garner an American citizen of the African descent vote in a municipal election. The election had been brought forward to the Supreme Court after the judges in the circuit courts in the Kentucky district had a division in their opinions. According to the Supreme Court the act of failing to register ones vote due to their color, race or any other condition of servitude is against the 15th amendment of the United States constitution. The 15th amendment does not bestow with the right to suffrage of the citizens however it invests the citizens with the right to exemption from discrimination in electoral processes. The chief justice Mr. Waite of the Supreme Court therefore according to his ruling dismissed ruling of the circuit courts on this in respect to the 15th amendment. The judge also stipulated that the congress did not define the legislation for one failing to register ones vote due to their race or color.

The Supreme Court ruling was also based on the power of the congress to legislate upon the subject of elections which is also contained by the 15th amendment of the United States constitution. This case brought a lot of impacts in the United States because after the ruling by the Supreme Court most of the states in America started developing various means of excluding the black the Americans of the African descent from voting. These states kept these actions within the constraint of the 14th amendment of the United States constitution. Poll taxes and literacy tests were introduced in different in order to exclude the blacks from participating in the electoral process in the US back in the year 1890. Most of the blacks in American back then were poor and therefore lacked the money to pay for the poll taxes and most of them were also illiterate this therefore made it easier for them to be denied their voting rights back then unlike nowadays where most of them are literate and also various amendment of the united states constitution have been made hence allowing most black Americans to exercise their voting rights.

Ohio voter purge Supreme Court case

This is a case concerning voter purging that was presented to the United States Supreme Court earlier this year. This court ruled in favor of the ending of the voter purging with five of the judges proposing the doing away with voter purging and four others opposing. The decision concentrated in extensive part on specialized elucidations of government casting ballot laws, in spite of the fact that the contention fundamental Ohio's framework a lot greater one about voter concealment. The Ohio system is mainly a methods for expelling voter enlistments that the state feels are obsolete from its rolls driving somebody to need to enroll by and by to cast a ballot. Ohio system has a system of dealing with voter purging. First, it trusts that somebody will not vote for two years. At that point it sends them a prepaid return card to ensure the eventual voter still lives at a similar location. On the off chance that the state does not recover the card and the individual does not cast a ballot in any decision for four more years, the state expect the individual has moved and expels the individual's voter enlistment from the rolls, referring to a difference in habitation? Adversaries of the framework contend that it abuses the government National Voter Enlistment Act and Help America Vote Act, which confine a state from expelling somebody from the rolls on the grounds that the individual neglected to cast a ballot.

Adversaries additionally guarantee that the framework is absurd, to some extent on the grounds that numerous individuals who got the arrival cards basically discarded them without reacting — not on the grounds that they never again live at the habitations, but since they might not have recognized what the cards were for. The Preeminent Court's Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Organization administering closed, in any case, that Ohio's voter cleanse framework did not damage government laws. The Court found that Ohio's framework utilizes an absence of casting a ballot as only one bit of proof, alongside the absence of reaction to the prepaid return card, to trigger a man's expulsion from the rolls. Since a man not casting a ballot isn't the sole reason for expulsion from the rolls, the Court stated, it's lawful under government law. The Court additionally said that the framework is, lawfully, sensible. "Ohio's procedure can't be absurd since it utilizes the difference in living arrangement proof that Congress said it could: the inability to send back a notice combined with the inability to vote in favor of the imperative time frame. Ohio's procedure is as needs be legitimate," the Court found. While a significant part of the decision centers on how to peruse and translate government law, the more extensive open discussion is about whether Ohio's framework is one more endeavor to stifle voters. In the course of recent years, Republican-controlled state governments have found a way to make casting a ballot harder — moves that, Democrats and social liberties activists contend, have made it more troublesome for minority and Law based voters specifically to cast their votes. The Ohio has greatly impacted in ensuring the voting rights of each American citizen are upheld in accordance to the current United States constitution.

Conclusion

These three cases are quite important in the judicial history or rather the whole history of the united states since they have played a vital role in ensuring that proper and up to date provisions have been made in order for every single citizen in the united states exercises their voting rights. These cases have also helped in curbing racial discrimination in elections and that each individual respects the rights of the other. The electoral congress has also improved to meet the current needs of each state and legislations have also been put in place in accordance with the law.

References

Armour, Brittany C. "After Shelby County v. Holder, Can Independent Commissions Take the Place of Section of the Voting Rights Act." Wash. UJL & Pol'y 53 (2017): 269.

Baldwin, Bridgette. "Backsliding: The United States Supreme Court, Shelby County v. Holder and the Dismantling of Voting Rights Act of 1965." (2015).

Blacksher, James, and Lani Guinier. "Free at Last: Rejecting Equal Sovereignty and Restoring the Constitutional Right to Vote Shelby County v. Holder." Harv. L. &Pol'y Rev. 8 (2014): 39.

Brunell, Thomas L., and Whitney Ross Manzo. "The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County v. Holder: A Potential Fix to Revive Section 5." Transatlantica. Revue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal 1 (2015).

Crotty, William. "Black Empowerment in Contemporary America: The Voting Rights’ Act Decision as a Case Study." (2015).

Edwards, Pamela. "One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: How the Supreme Court’s Decision in Shelby County v. Holder Eviscerated the Voting Rights Act and What Civil Rights Advocates Should Do about It." Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity 7, no. 1 (2015): 19.