Throwing Away the Umbrella: Minority Voting after the Supreme Court’s Shelby Decision

The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder dramatically changed the Voting Rights Act, ending the “preclearance” process that had required federal approval before places with a history of discrimination changed their voting procedures. Dissenting justices and voting-rights advocates feared the decision could allow changes to election administration that would suppress minority voter participation. This paper evaluates the decision’s impact on election practices and on voting. Shelby yielded decisive changes in some practices that had been constrained by preclearance (voter identification laws), though evidence on potential indirect changes to election administration is mixed. These bounded changes to election practices do not appear to have translated into a degradation of minority voter participation or power over the period studied. Using administrative data and a difference-in-differences design comparing places affected and unaffected by the court’s decision, we find minimal changes in Black-white voting gaps in the post-Shelby period; further analyses indicate that voter participation was generally stable or potentially increasing in previously covered places.