1970 and 1975 Voting Rights Act Amendments | Your Vote Your Voice, The Continuous Struggle

On December 21, 1970, the Oregon v. Mitchell Supreme Court case was decided, lowering the minimum voting age in U.S. Federal elections to 18. The voting age for state and local elections was left to states discretion. From the article:

"1970 and 1975 Voting Rights Act Amendments
1970 Amendments
In 1970, Congress voted to extend renewable portions of the Voting Rights Act for five more years. They also added some new provisions to the act.

The 1970 amendments included a nationwide ban on literacy tests and reduced residency requirements [link to tools of suppression] that could be applied in presidential elections.

The 1970 reauthorization also reduced the voting age [link to AGE subpage] in national elections from 21 to 18 years of age. Though this provision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court for non-federal elections, the voting age was permanently lowered by passage of the 26th Amendment [link to Fed Law and to AGE subpage] in 1971.

1975 Amendments
The 1975 amendments addressed voting barriers faced by Latinxs [int link], Asian American [int link] and American Indian [int link] citizens.

For example, more than half a million Puerto Ricans of voting age residing in New York City who had been educated in American schools, could not meet the English-literacy requirement for voting in New York because their instruction had been Spanish language only.

The 1975 amendments added protections from voting discrimination for language minority citizens [link to tools of suppression and fed law]. The law now requires jurisdictions with significant numbers of voters with limited or no English proficiency to provide voting materials and assistance in relevant languages in addition to English.

In addition, Section 2 (nationwide) protections were amended to include language minority status as well as race and color.

Intention vs. Result
One of the most important changes to the Voting Rights Act amended Section 2 protections. A 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision Mobile v. Bolden stated that plaintiffs had to prove that laws were intended to discriminate against a protected group when fighting a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

In response, Congress changed the law to state that voting rights violations under Section 2 could be proved by showing that an election law or procedure resulted in discrimination, whether the law had intended to discriminate or not.

Extension to the Elderly and Disabled
Protections for elderly and disabled voters were added to the Voting Rights Act in 1984 [int link]. The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act requires states to take specific steps to make the voting process accessible to people with disabilities .

1992 Amendments
The Voting Rights Language Assistance Act of 1992 [ext link] maintained language assistance for selected language minority populations. It also offered coverage for jurisdictions with significant populations (including Latinxs, Asian Americans and American Indians) who had not yet been offered language assistance under federal mandate.

2006 Amendments
Congress honored voting rights pioneers when renewing the special provisions of the Act in 2006 in the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Cesar E. Chavez, Barbara Jordan, William Velazquez and Dr. Hector Garcia Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act.

The 2006 reauthorization extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years, including the prohibition against the use of tests or devices to deny the right to vote and the requirement for certain states and local governments to provide voting materials in multiple languages."