Supreme Court restricts Voting Rights Act

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a Louisiana voting rights case will make it harder to challenge political maps as being racially discriminatory, but the ruling will likely have limited effect on statewide district maps in Pennsylvania, where the state constitution provides stronger protections against gerrymandering.On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines that raises the bar for proving illegal racial gerrymandering.The case revolved around Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a Civil Rights era protection that prohibits racial discrimination in voting and has historically been used to challenge how voting districts are drawn and require that members of a racial minority have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. In the most recent round of redist