Hispanics, Affirmative Action, and Voting

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was originally intended to protect the rights of blacks living in the Deep South, who had been prevented from voting for nearly a century. In 1975, the act was amended to include jurisdictions where large numbers of Mexican Americans live, despite little evidence that Mexican Americans had been systematically excluded from voting as blacks in the South had been. In 1982, the act was again amended, this time to broaden the definition of voting discrimination to apply an effects standard similar to that used in employment discrimination. As a result of the 1982 amendments, Hispanics are now guaranteed the right to vote in safe districts in which they make up a majority of voters. The effect of this provision, coupled with large-scale immigration over the last decade, has been the creation of gerrymandered districts comprising large numbers of persons who are ineligible to vote because they are not yet citizens.