Date on which the U.S. Supreme Court in its Shelby County v. Holder ruling disabled Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required states with a history of voter discrimination — most of them in the South — to get federal pre-approval for any elections changes: 6/25/2013
Following the Shelby decision, number of states previously covered by federal pre-approval requirements that passed or implemented new voting restrictions: 8
Date on which a federal trial began over North Carolina's new voting law, which its Republican-controlled legislature passed a month after Shelby and is considered the nation's most restrictive: 7/13/2015
Date on which a bipartisan group of Congress members introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 (H.R. 3899) to restore some legal protections Shelby took away: 1/16/2014
Under that bill, number of voting rights-related violations a state would have had to rack up in order to be subjected to federal pre-approval requirements: 5
Number of states that bill's pre-approval formula would have applied to, all of them in the South: 4*
Number of co-sponsors the bill got: 177
Date on which it was referred to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, where it languished without a hearing or vote: 3/20/2014
Date on which congressional Democrats introduced the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 (S. 1659/H.R. 2867), a more ambitious plan to restore the Voting Rights Act: 6/24/2015
Under this bill, total number of voting violations states would have had to rack up over the past quarter-century to fall under federal pre-approval requirements: 25
Number of voting violations it would take for states to be subjected to pre-approval requirements if one of those violations were statewide: 10
Number of states the new bill's formula would initially cover: 13
Of those covered states, number that are in the South: 10**
Number of people who attended a rally last month in Roanoke, Virginia calling on Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to hold a hearing on the bill: more than 300
Date on which House Democrats held a press conference urging action on the legislation: 7/16/2015
Number of co-sponsors the House version of the bill now has: 81
Number of co-sponsors the Senate version now has: 25
Number of the co-sponsors from both chambers who are Republicans: 0
* Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
** Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
(Click on figure to go to source.)
