the court struck down the part of the voting rights act which says that certain states and counties that have a history of racially discriminated voting restrictions, they need to get any changes to their voting procedures pre checked by the justice department to make sure those changes aren't discriminatory. big parts of north carolina were covered by the preclearance sections of the voting rights act, but when the supreme court struck down that portion of the act, north carolina republicans pounced and they radically moved to restrict voting in the state. because they finally could. now, though, something really interesting is happening. because even though we no longer have the part of the voting rights act that makes states have to get clearance to know that their voting changes aren't going to be discriminatory, we do still have the part of the voting rights act that says the justice department can sue a state after the fact. so once the state has already implemented discriminatory voting changes, then the federal government afterwards can sue that state because of the discriminatory effect of those changes. and the big test of that