The Limits of Preclearance

Abstract

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court ended enforcement of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. As a result, over 3500 municipalities were released from the preclearance requirement to seek federal approval prior to enacting changes to elections. Despite the Court’s majority opinion that Section 5 was no longer needed, practices like enforcing strict voter ID requirements and last-minute polling place changes increased dramatically after Shelby County. However, one underexamined election change is changing municipal boundaries through annexations. Municipal annexations can weaken minority political representation in municipal elections if minority population shares decrease after annexation. Using difference-in-differences models, I analyze annexations for over 15,000 municipalities from 2007–2020 across all forty U.S. states with annexable land. I find no evidence that municipalities previously covered by Section 5 increased annexation activity or that they conducted more annexations that dilute Black and minority resident shares after Shelby County. Patterns of annexations pre-Shelby County suggest that the null finding can be explained by the limited effectiveness of Section 5 in preventing minority dilution through annexations when it was in place. This study underscores how municipal boundaries can be manipulated to perpetuate inequality and the limitations of federal legislation in preventing this practice.