Did Changes to the Voting Rights Act Cause Electoral Backsliding in the States?

When announced in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision immediately raised concerns that its invalidation of the coverage formula stipulated in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act would foster voter suppression and other antidemocratic practices in jurisdictions subject to preclearance protections. Over a decade after this decision, I put these claims to the test. Using a synthetic difference-in-difference design and the State Democracy Index, a holistic measurement model that provides state-level estimates of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I examine whether changes in state-level electoral democracy may have led to electoral backsliding in formerly fully and partially covered states in the years following the Court’s decision. Ultimately, I find no evidence that electoral backsliding occurred in these jurisdictions in subsequent years. I conclude by discussing the significance of this finding and offering directions for future study.