Analysis: Decision gives politicians new latitude | savannahnow.com

ATLANTA — The question raised by last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act is what will Georgia politicians do with their new latitude.

The court did not scrap the protections for minority voters in the federal law, only the mechanism that made Georgia submit every change in its voting procedures for federal preclearance. That means alterations to polling places, precinct lines and wording on registration forms no longer have to be shipped to Washington for 90 days of consideration before they can take effect.

It ended the administrative burden and expense of having to justify such seemingly minor, routine updates to officials hundreds of miles away who have never visited the locations they are evaluating. It did not end the basis for their deliberations, specifically the core of the law that prevents weakening minority electoral power through political trickery.

Instead of every change, large and small, automatically coming under federal scrutiny, the remaining law requires someone to file a lawsuit in order to object. Of course, lawsuits are expensive and drawn out and more involved than simply writing a letter to the Justice Department, notes William Boone, political science professor at Clark Atlanta University.

“It means there’ll be a hard legal battle to fight,” he said.

via Analysis: Decision gives politicians new latitude | savannahnow.com.