To Participate and Elect:
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act at 40

 

Welcome! This website provides a database and accompanying analysis of cases decided under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act between June 29, 1982 and July 1, 2023. Through an analysis of Section 2 at 40 in 2022, it updates our 2006 study documenting Section 2 litigation through 2005. Since then, we have continued to update the database with new cases and publish new findings, the most recent being our July 1, 2023 update. While the legal landscape has changed considerably since the original report, this project, like the original, rests on the idea that Section 2 decisions offer a lens through which variations in political participation over time and region may be viewed and evaluated. We hope to help inform how Section 2 claims and remedies have changed over the past four decades.

 

The map on this page shows Section 2 decisions by State since 1982. More information about individual efforts, as well as our database, can be found on the Database page. For analysis of the database, see the Findings page. For information about how the study was conducted, see the About page.