Re‐righting the law: The impact of VRA preclearance on language minorities

Abstract The 1975 Voting Rights Act (VRA) extended voting rights protections to language minority groups. Employing a triple difference design, we find that language minority voter turnout remained stable in VRA‐shielded counties while it eroded elsewhere. This led to a reallocation of state educational funds away from unshielded counties. As a result, shielded counties experienced preferable changes in their high school graduation rates, white‐collar job attainment, and income. We find most of these differences were driven by the VRA's preclearance provision.