The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Enfranchisement

Evidence from North Carolina

Bibliographic Data

ID6396142
AuthorsAdriane Fresh (0000-0001-6357-2565, Vanderbilt University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume80
Issue2
Pages713-718
Publication date2018-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3816 • E-ISSN: 1468-2508
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/697592
OpenAlexW2794005310
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited9

Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act required covered jurisdictions—those deemed perniciously politically discriminatory to minorities—to preclear changes to their voting practices with the Department of Justice. By exploiting the use of a federally imposed threshold for how Section 5 coverage was applied in North Carolina, this article estimates the effect of coverage using a difference-in-differences design. This article finds that Section 5 coverage increased black voter registration by 14–19 percentage points, white registration by 10–13 percentage points, and overall voter turnout by 10–19 percentage points. Additional results for Democratic vote share suggest that some of this overall increase in turnout may have come from reactionary whites. This article finds that Section 5 coverage had a statistically and substantively meaningful effect on enfranchisement, although an effect consistent with the more modest of extant estimates in the literature

Advertising · Business · Democracy · Demographic economics · Economic Justice · Economics · Extant taxon · Percentage point · Political science · Politics · Reactionary · Section (typography · Turnout · Voter registration · Voter turnout · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Finance · Gender Politics and Representation · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Public Administration

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