The effect of the voting rights act on enfranchisement: Evidence from North Carolina

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.

Duke Scholars

Author Adriane Stewart Fresh Political Science