Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 48.0

Cite as:  570 U. S. ____ (2013) 

17 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

years,  leaving  that  district  without  representation 
on  the  city  council  while  the  neighboring  majority­
white  district  would  have  three  representatives.    1 
Section  5  Hearing  744.    DOJ  blocked  the  proposal. 
The  county  then  sought  to  move  a  polling  place 
from  a  predominantly  black  neighborhood  in  the
city  to  an  inaccessible  location  in  a  predominantly
white neighborhood outside city limits.  Id., at 816. 

	  In 2004, Waller County, Texas, threatened to prose­

cute two black students after they announced their 
intention  to  run  for  office.    The  county  then  at­
tempted to reduce the availability of early voting in 
that  election  at  polling  places  near  a  historically
black university.  679 F. 3d, at 865–866. 

	  In  1990,  Dallas  County,  Alabama,  whose  county 
seat  is  the  City  of  Selma,  sought  to  purge  its  voter
rolls of many black voters.  DOJ rejected the purge
as discriminatory, noting that it would have disquali­
fied  many  citizens  from  voting  “simply  because 
they  failed  to  pick  up  or  return  a  voter  update
form,  when  there  was  no  valid  requirement  that
they do so.”  1 Section 5 Hearing 356. 

These  examples,  and  scores  more  like  them,  fill  the
pages  of  the  legislative  record.    The  evidence  was  indeed 
sufficient  to  support  Congress’  conclusion  that  “racial
discrimination  in  voting  in  covered  jurisdictions  [re­
mained] serious and pervasive.”  679 F. 3d, at 865.5 

—————— 

5 For  an  illustration  postdating  the  2006  reauthorization,  see  South 

Carolina  v.  United  States,  898  F. Supp.  2d  30  (DC  2012),  which  in­
volved  a  South  Carolina  voter-identification  law  enacted  in  2011. 
Concerned  that  the  law  would  burden  minority  voters, DOJ  brought  a
§5 enforcement action to block the law’s implementation.  In the course 
of  the  litigation,  South  Carolina  officials  agreed  to  binding  interpreta­
tions that made it “far easier than some might have expected or feared” 
for  South  Carolina  citizens  to  vote.    Id.,  at  37.    A  three-judge  panel