Virginia Still in Need of Voting Protections, Says New Report
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 5/16/2006
As recent as 2005, Danville, Virginia residents distributed hate literature in black neighborhoods threatening voters with lynching if they did not vote a certain way. This intimidation coupled with the city's election system systematically dilutes black voting power.Danville is not alone in its actions.
A new report about Virginia's violations of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 since it was last reauthorized in 1982 documents how people in some areas of the state actively work to prevent minorities exercising their constitutional right to vote.
"The minority population in Virginia is growing, and although its electoral processes have opened up somewhat for blacks, they still remain at a disadvantage to white voters. Representation is still not proportionate, and protections must be renewed in order for minorities to have an equal voice in Virginia," said Anita S. Earls, one of the authors of the report.
Despite the relative success of the VRA in Virginia, racial disparity in state government is still present. African Americans make up 20.1 percent of Virginia's population, but only 11 percent of the state's House Representative, 12.5 percent of state senators, and 9.1 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives are black, according to the report.
The entire state of Virginia is required to submit all voting changes to the Department of Justice (DOJ) because of past discriminatory practices. The report highlights examples of current discriminatory election procedures, mostly through redistricting, that were rejected by DOJ.
For example, twice, in 2001 and 2003, Northampton County diluted black voters' ability to elect their candidates to the board of supervisors by collapsing districts with majority black populations into three larger districts. DOJ rejected these plans, and provided a non-discriminatory plan in 2003, which the county has yet to implement.
Non-native speakers in Virginia encounter barriers to voting as well. A poll from the 2004 election found that in Falls Church, 55 percent of Vietnamese-American respondents had limited English proficiency, 29 percent of whom needed an interpreter, and 24 percent translated materials.
However, Virginia is not legally obligated under the VRA to provide language assistance to Virginias who do not speak English fluently, as some states are.
The VRA was enacted to remove barriers to voting for minorities. This report shows that barriers still exist and the VRA needs to be extended. Considered the most successful civil rights legislation ever enacted, it prohibits discrimination based on race.
Three key protections of the VRA will expire in August 2007 if Congress does not act now to renew them: Section 5, which requires preclearance of voting changes in states and localities with a history of voting discrimination, Section 203, which require counties where more than 5 percent of citizens are not native English speakers to provide language assistance, and Sections 6-9, which authorize the Department of Justice to send federal examiners and observers to monitor elections.
RenewtheVRA.org is a collaboration of national organizations with long experience in protecting minority voting rights, including such groups as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the NAACP and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, ACLU, and Asian American Justice Center.
