Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 pertaining to the “covered” jurisdictions were set to expire after five years but were reauthorized in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006.
In 2009, the racial gap in voter registration and turnout was lower in the states originally covered than it was nationwide.
In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the formula in section 4 of the VRA is no longer appropriate since “the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.”