The Voting Rights Act, Shelby County, and Redistricting: Improving Estimates of Racially Polarized Voting in a Multiple-Election Context

The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County has severely limited the power of the Voting Rights Act. I argue that Congressional attempts to pass a new coverage formula are unlikely to gain the necessary Republican support. Instead, I propose a new strategy that takes a “carrot and stick” approach. As the stick, I suggest amending Section 3 to eliminate the need to prove that discrimination was intentional. For the carrot, I envision a competitive grant program similar to the highly successful Race to the Top education grants. I argue that this plan could pass the currently divided Congress.

Without Congressional action, Section 2 is more important than ever before. A successful Section 2 suit requires evidence that voting in the jurisdiction is racially polarized. Accurately and objectively assessing the level of polarization has been and continues to be a challenge for experts. Existing ecological inference methods require estimating polarization levels in individual elections. This is a problem because the Courts want to see a history of polarization across elections.

I propose a new 2-step method to estimate racially polarized voting in a multi-election context. The procedure builds upon the Rosen, Jiang, King, and Tanner (2001) multinomial-Dirichlet model. After obtaining election-specific estimates, I suggest regressing those results on election-specific variables, namely candidate quality, incumbency, and ethnicity of the minority candidate of choice. This allows researchers to estimate the baseline level of support for candidates of choice and test whether the ethnicity of the candidates affected how voters cast their ballots.

Payment for Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Mater and Jones accounts

Payment for Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Mater and Jones accounts. This document has some water damage which has smeared the writing but it does not affect text, July 29, 1882.

Payment for the Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Jones, Mater, Sampson, Conklin, Dennis and Griffin accounts

Payment for the Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Jones, Mater, Sampson, Conklin, Dennis and Griffin accounts, Jan. 29, 1883.

Payment for the Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Jones, Mater, Sampson, Dennis, Conklin and Griffin accounts

Payment for the Shelby, Cunningham, Jarvis, Jones, Mater, Sampson, Dennis, Conklin and Griffin accounts, July 30, 1883.

Letter written by Samuel Woodruff regarding Shelby and Cogswell accounts

Letter written by Samuel Woodruff regarding Shelby and Cogswell accounts. There is no salutation [to Jarvis and Conklin], Sept. 6, 1882.

Letter to Jarvis, Conklin and Co. regarding the Shelby account

Letter to Jarvis, Conklin and Co. regarding the Shelby account. The letter is unsigned, but it is in Samuel Woodruff’s handwriting, Oct. 29, 1883.

Letter to Jarvis, Conklin and Co. is in S.D. Woodruff’s handwriting, but unsigned regarding the Shelby and Cunningham accounts

Letter (1 ¼ pages, handwritten) to Jarvis, Conklin and Co. is in S.D. Woodruff’s handwriting, but unsigned regarding the Shelby and Cunningham accounts, March 25, 1883.

Down the Santa Fé trail and into México : the diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847

UANL

Implementation and operation of NASS PSU 52 - St. Clair, Shelby Counties, Alabama. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Washington, D.C.

A traffic safety demonstration program for Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Programs, Washington, D.C.

Shelbyville area : Shelby County /

"April 22, 1950."

Final environmental impact statement : U.S. 51 (F.A.P. 322) Pana to Decatur, Christian, Shelby, and Macon Counties, Illinois /

"FHWA-IL-EIS-91-02-F."

LMI trends. Beltline of Illinois counties (Coles, Cumberland, Macoupin, Montgomery, Christian, and Shelby).

Caption title.

John N. Edwards: biography, memoirs, reminiscences and recollections; his brilliant career as soldier, author, and journalist; choice collection of his most notable and interesting newspaper articles, together with some unpublished poems and many private letters. Also a reprint of Shelby's expedition to Mexico, an unwritten leaf of the war:

Biographical sketch / Rev. George Plattenburg -- Twenty years of friendship / Morrison Munford -- Miscellaneous writings of John N. Edwards (p. 65-180) -- Personal tributes -- Newspaper tributes -- Shelley's expedition to Mexico.