Today, the Supreme Court tossed out Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the key 1965 law meant to prevent disenfranchisement of minority voters. Section 4 says states and other jurisdictions that have sufficient histories of voting discrimination have to go through what’s called “preclearance” under Section 5 of the law whenever they redistrict or otherwise update their voting laws. Currently those jurisdictions cover most of the South but also Manhattan, Brooklyn, some counties in California and South Dakota, and towns in Michigan.

So can someone explain the ruling from today? Why? How? Wtf?

Ok...um, hooray?

Basically, the Court ruled that what happened in a state's history can't be used in perpetuity to treat it differently from other states. All it means is that the Justice Department has to prove in court that a law is actually disenfranchising people rather than holding a veto over certain state's rights to pass laws as they have done for the last ~50 years.

I don't understand it myself but; WHAT THE FUCK!? did the supreme court not know of the wild shit that just went down during the 2012 election? voter ID laws, closing polls early, limiting days of early voters and most of this happened in largely monority/democratic populated districs....

So the affected states now can tell by which rules people can vote? Why doesn't the US have an uniform system for voting?

I guess because you can end up voting in local, state, and federal elections all on the same ballot.

Is that a good or bad thing?

I think it's good. If a law is bad on the merits, then a court will strike it down. Giving the Justice Department the power to invalidate the laws of some states but not of other states is, ironically, pretty unequal treatment.

I don't really know.. cause I don't follow US politics not that closely (reason I made the thread) but on the news people are really scared because of this... that stuff like this would happen:

2012 election blocks

Last year, the US justice department blocked changes to voter identification laws in the states of South Carolina and Texas.And a federal court ruled that a plan to change the boundaries of congressional districts in Texas discriminated against the state's large and growing Hispanic population. Activists in favour of preserving the law say that since the Voting Rights Act was renewed seven years ago, as many as 31 proposed changes to election laws have been blocked by Washington.

Last week, the US Supreme Court struck down a state law in Arizona that would have required registered voters to provide proof of citizenship at the polls.|

Democrats say stricter voting laws, mainly championed by Republican legislatures, are designed to make it harder for minorities - who tend to vote Democratic - to cast their ballots.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23051808

That seems unfair. Politicians, in this case Republicans I suppose, playing dirty again.

It shouldn't be up to each individual state to determine any voting criteria for national elections. That's awkward.