Administering Section 2 of the VRA After Shelby County

63 Pages Posted: 26 Mar 2014 Last revised: 11 Dec 2019

See all articles by Christopher S. Elmendorf

Christopher S. Elmendorf

University of California, Davis - School of Law

Douglas M. Spencer

University of Colorado Law School

Date Written: February 7, 2015

Abstract

Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, Section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This paper argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform Section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court’s evisceration of Section 5. The proposed reformation of Section 2 rests on two insights: first, that national survey data often contains as much or more information than precinct-level vote margins about the core factual matters in Section 2 cases; second, that the courts have authority to create rebuttable presumptions to regularize Section 2 adjudication. Section 2 cases currently turn on costly, case-specific estimates of voter preferences generated from precinct-level vote totals and demographic information. Judicial decisions provide little guidance about how future cases — each relying on data from a different set of elections — are likely to be resolved. By creating evidentiary presumptions whose application in any given case would be determined using national survey data and a common statistical model, the courts could greatly reduce the cost and uncertainty of Section 2 litigation. This approach would also end the dependence of vote-dilution claims on often-unreliable techniques of ecological inference, and would make coalitional claims brought jointly by two or more minority groups much easier to litigate.

Suggested Citation

Elmendorf, Christopher S. and Spencer, Douglas M., Administering Section 2 of the VRA After Shelby County (February 7, 2015). Columbia Law Review, Vol. 115, No. 8, pp. 2143-2218 (2015), UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 372, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2414652 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2414652

Christopher S. Elmendorf

University of California, Davis - School of Law ( email )

Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall
Davis, CA CA 95616-5201
United States
530-752-5756 (Phone)
530-753-5311 (Fax)

Douglas M. Spencer (Contact Author)

University of Colorado Law School

401 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
United States

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