I served as Chief Counsel to the Constitutional Rights Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. in 1975. the Subcommittee managed amendments to the Voting Rights Act. and we drafted. debated. and passed section 203 on my watch. I knew then that section 203 was a vital protection of voting rights. It is no less important today. By 1975. poverty. poor education. and institutionalized discrimination had combined to turn Englishonly ballots into a de facto literacy test. Many citizens did not register to vote because they could not read election materials or communicate with poll workers. Section 203 helped lower these barriers by requiring that jurisdictions with a significant population of "language minorities" provide election information in more than one language.
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literacy test