William O. Douglas

“ If racial discrimination were the only concern of the Equal Protection Clause, then across-the-board voting regulations set by the States would be of no concern to Congress. But it is much too late in history to make that claim, as the cases listed in the Appendix to this opinion show. Moreover, election inequalities created by state laws and based on factors other than race may violate the Equal Protection Clause, as we have held over and over again. The reach of § 5 to "enforce" equal protection by eliminating election inequalities would seem quite broad. ”

“ By like reasoning, Congress in the present legislation need not make findings as to the incidence of literacy. It can rely on the fact that most States do not have literacy tests; that the tests have been used at times as a discriminatory weapon against some minorities, not only Negroes, but Americans of Mexican ancestry, and American Indians; that radio and television have made it possible for a person to be well informed even though he may not be able to read and write. ”

“ The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing — one person, one vote. ”

“ The effect of § 202 is to reduce all state durational residency requirements to 30 days.
In presidential elections no parochial interests of the State, county, or city are involved. Congress found that a durational residency requirement "in some instances has the impermissible purpose or effect of denying citizens the right to vote." § 202 (a) (4) . It found in § 202 (a) (3) that a durational residency requirement denies citizen their privileges and immunities. [12]
The Seventeenth Amendment states that Senators shall be "elected by the people." ”

“ Congress might well conclude that a reduction in the voting age from 21 to 18 was needed in the interest of equal protection. The Act itself brands the denial of [p142] the franchise to 18-year-olds as "a particularly unfair treatment of such citizens in view of the national defense responsibilities imposed" on them. §.301 (a) (1) , Voting Rights Act, 84 Stat. 318. The fact that only males are drafted while the vote extends to females as well is not relevant, for the female component of these families or prospective families is also caught up in war, and hit hard by it. ”

“ The principle, however, that the protection of the exercise of this right is within the power of Congress, is as necessary to the right of other citizens to vote as to the colored citizen, and to the right to vote in general as to the right to be protected against discrimination. ”

“ I dissent from the judgments of the Court insofar as they declare § 302 of the Voting Rights Act, 84 Stat. 318, unconstitutional as applied to state elections and concur in the judgments as they affect federal elections, but for different reasons. ”

“ Reapportionment, as our experience shows, presented a tangle of partisan politics in which geography, economics, urban life, rural constituencies, and numerous other nonlegal factors play varying roles. ”

“ The question in these cases is whether Congress has the power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to bar literacy tests in all federal, state, or local elections.
Section 201 bars a State from denying the right to vote in any federal, state, or local election because of "any [p145] test or device" which is defined, inter alia, to include literacy. ”