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The University of New Mexico

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Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920
cgonzal@unm.edu

August 24, 2007

UNM Political Scientist Reveals Voting Rights Act Still Necessary

Professor Christine SierraUniversity of New Mexico Political Science Professor Christine Sierra is the primary investigator in a recent study on the impact of the Voting Rights Act on non-white elected officials, which is featured in the July issue of PS: Political Science & Politics , a journal of the American Political Science Association.

The article is also cited in the August 6 issue of Hispanic Link Weekly Report.

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote, and it provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than 50 percent of eligible minority voters registered.

The Act provided for Department of Justice approval for any change in voting law in districts that had used a device to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964. It was signed in 1965, and signed for a 25 year extension by President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. Sierra’s study focused on this area of the act, as well as Section 203, which requires voting assistance in languages other than English in certain jurisdictions.

Often considered a landmark in civil rights legislation, the Act has been criticized, especially during talks of renewal in 2006, as a bill that achieved its goal of minority voting and now has become overly demanding of certain states.

Thirty-two Hispanic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who served in the 109 th Congress were elected from jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act, Hispanic Link reports.

“It suggests if the VRA were not in place that indeed our Latino elected leadership would be greately reduced, and it even suggests that there would be no (Latinos) in the U.S. Congress,” Sierra said in the article.

Hispanic Link reports that in state elections 82 percent of Hispanics elected in 2006 had their districts covered by the VRA. It covered more than 90 percent of elections for county, municipal and school boards.

The study found that while people of color comprised 31 percent of the total U.S. population in 2000, congressional representation by people of color was below 12 percent.

“It is not only historically important but continues to be important for minority political enfranchisement,” Sierra said.


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