When the US supreme court issued a decision in 2013 crippling the power of the landmark Voting Rights Act, Republican-controlled legislatures saw it as a green light to push restrictive voting laws that likely would have been blocked previously.
Before 2013, nine states and dozens of other jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting had to pre-approve changes to their voting law with the Department of Justice. But after the decision, states moved forward with a wave of sweeping voting changes that made it harder for people to register to vote and cast ballots.
