The Storm Is Here: Inside the Attack on the Voting Rights Act

Guest Post from Stacey Abrams:

60 years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. 48 years later, in 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that “the blight of racial discrimination in voting” had been largely cured, justifying the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act. But his colleagues, like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, saw the storm coming. 

Striking down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, she warned, was like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you’re not getting wet.”

The Shelby County v. Holder decision gutted the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance provision, allowing states and localities with a history of discrimination to change voting laws without federal oversight. The floodgates opened, and the storm hasn’t let up since.

Within hours of that fateful pronouncement, states began passing laws to restrict access to the ballot. Twelve years later, we’ve seen a constant onslaught of administrative attacks, statutory barriers and regulatory obstacles. Year after year, from the Supreme Court to far-right legal operatives, the assault on voting rights accelerates – with one clear goal: to eviscerate the right to vote for millions of Americans, not through sudden decree, but by the steady erosion of hard-won protections.

On the 60th anniversary of the VRA, what began as a corrective action to centuries of injustice now stands as a harbinger for the fall of American democracy itself. In the march towards autocracy, eliminating the VRA is the eye of the storm.

For sixty years, this landmark pronouncement of equality in citizenship stood as a xxxxxx against voter suppression. Yet, over the past two decades, coordinated forces have systematically eroded those protections from every angle. 

The Supreme Court has hollowed out the law from above, while a network of shadowy, far-right organizations – including the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Election Integrity Network – have chipped away from below. They’ve used debunked conspiracy theories, cynical model legislation and astroturf organizing to rewrite the rules, pressure lawmakers, file strategic lawsuits and reshape public perception – all to sow doubt in the legitimacy of our elections.

Today, voter suppression no longer takes the form of poll taxes, literacy tests or widespread physical violence. It’s bureaucratic – built on administrative power used to confuse, inconvenience and wear down the American people. The psychic effect of navigating a regulatory scheme designed for failure is clear: the harder it is to vote, the less likely it is that folks will try. But as with all attacks on democracy, while marginalized communities may be the target, all Americans risk becoming collateral damage.

We see it in the mass purging of voter rolls, like Georgia’s plan to remove nearly half a million names, one of the largest in U.S. history. When likely out-of-state movers are excluded, the purge disproportionately targets Black voters. The very same voters who marched against these exclusionary tactics in Albany and Atlanta, in Selma and Cincinnati, find themselves relitigating their right to vote.

We also see it in laws like Georgia’s SB 202, passed after the 2020 election and the 2021 runoff, which cut voting access in ways that disproportionately harm communities of color. The law restricted voting by mail, limited drop boxes and made it a crime to hand out water to voters waiting in line. It also banned most out-of-precinct provisional ballots – a method used by over 20,000 Georgians in 2020 and 2021, nearly 70% of whom were Democrats, many of them Black.

The maelstrom of voter suppression includes redistricting, too. In Texas, Florida and other states, maps are being redrawn mid-decade to entrench GOP power, not reflect the population’s will. New legislation aims to erase entire communities from the Census count – a backdoor attempt to rig representation without a single vote cast.

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Through it all, the courts, once a refuge for defending civil rights, have become harder to reach. Lawsuits are more difficult to win. Private citizens and civil rights groups face losing their standing to sue under the VRA.

Meanwhile, many lawyers and law firms who bring these types of cases are under attack from a hostile presidential administration. Individually, these challenges evidence a weakened system of citizen engagement.

Together, they have a more sinister frame – one that understands the demographic shifts of the 21st century are arriving fast. If they can’t change the future, they’ll break it.

Democracy doesn’t defend itself. Our system has checks and balances, but they don’t run on autopilot.

A living democracy depends on people in power doing what’s right – and on the rest of us raising our voices to make sure they do. For 249 years, Americans have assiduously added to the chorus by enfranchising voters – from the 13th, 19th and 26th amendments to the citizenship finally granted to Native Americans in 1921 and, yes, the crown jewel of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

However, rather than bemoan the demise of the VRA, we must cast our eyes forward and create a system based on progress, not simply redress.

That means passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to not simply restore the VRA’s protections but fully construct a modern voting system that seeks true democracy rather than piecemeal corrective action. It means fighting to protect freedom in the courts, even as the path narrows, recognizing that like Thurgood Marshall and hundreds before him, we will lose cases in order to win the courts.

Most fundamentally, we are called up to organize in our communities – registering voters, educating citizens about how the government functions, challenging unnecessary voter purges and refusing to let clever phrases mask discriminatory intent.

Saving democracy is a daunting challenge, but we have seen it happen before. The Voting Rights Act is more than a collection of statutes – it is a reminder of our darkest instincts and our capacity for national redemption.

The power to protect democracy has always come from the people. We will not bow to the storm – we will make it through.

Stacey Abrams, a former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader, is an author, producer and founder of Fair Fight Action, Fair Count and the Southern Economic Advancement Project.

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