Opinion ID: 118099
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The National Voter Registration Act

Text: Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), 107 Stat. 77, 42 U. S. C. § 1973gg et seq., to take effect for States like Mississippi on January 1, 1995. The NVRA requires States to provide simplified systems for registering to vote in federal elections, i. e., elections for federal officials, such as the President, congressional Representatives, and United States Senators. The States must provide a system for voter registration by mail, § 1973gg4, a system for voter registration at various state offices (including those that provide public assistance and those that provide services to people with disabilities), § 1973gg5, and, particularly important, a system for voter registration on a driver's license application, § 1973gg3. The NVRA specifies various details about how these systems must work, including, for example, the type of information that States can require on a voter registration form. §§ 1973gg3(c)(2), 1973gg7(b). It also imposes requirements about just when, and how, States may remove people from the federal voter rolls. §§ 1973gg6(a)(3), (4). The NVRA adds that it does not supersede, restrict or limit the application of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and that it does not authoriz[e] or requir[e] conduct that is prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. § 1973gg9(d). The Voting Rights Act Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), among other things, prohibits a State with a specified history of voting discrimination, such as Mississippi, from enact[ing] or seek[ing] to administer any . . . practic[e], or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964, unless and until the State obtains preclearance from the United States Attorney General (Attorney General) or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. § 1973c. Preclearance is, in effect, a determination that the change does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. Ibid. In the language of § 5 jurisprudence, this determination involves a determination that the change is not retrogressive. Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976); 28 CFR § 51.54(a) (1996).