Quote Originally Posted by wvpiper View Post
You've echoed my point. The problems may have been primarily southern based, but the laws do not specifically single out a state, or region. It is applicable to all 50 states.
True, but that is something of a disingenius way of putting it.

The Voting Rights Act is, in this regard we are discussing, very much like what are called "population bills" and are often used in legislation that purportedly applies to an entire state (if passed by a state legislature) or the entire country. These bills are written so that they apply only to, say, a "county having more than 234,378 residents but less than 235,000 residents at the time of the 2000 census," and, hence, there is only one possible county the bill could apply to. I just isn't named.

The Voting Rights Act was written similarly, so that as a practical matter it involves only the Southern states (with a very few local exceptions outside the South,) although of course racial and other discrimination in voting had occured throughout the country, though not as recently as in the South, where it was intended to remedy more recent and more blatant methods of keeping African Americans from voting.