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2 Shortly after the Civil War, Congress passed and the States ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, providing that “[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged … on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 15, §1. In the century that followed, however, the Amendment proved little more than a parchment promise. Jim Crow laws like literacy tests, poll taxes, and “good-morals” requirements abounded, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 312–313 (1966), “render[ing] the right to vote illusory for blacks,” ''Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder'', 557 U. S. 193, 220–221 (2009) (, concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Congress stood up to little of it; “[t]he first century of congressional enforcement of the [Fifteenth] Amendment … can only be regarded as a failure.” Id., at 197 (majority opinion).

That changed in 1965. Spurred by the Civil Rights movement, Congress enacted and President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act. 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10301 et seq. The Act “create[d] stringent new remedies for voting discrimination,” attempting to forever “banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting.” Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 308. By 1981, in only sixteen years’ time, many considered the VRA “the most successful civil rights statute in the history of the Nation.” S. Rep. No. 97–417, p. 111 (1982) (Senate Report).

These cases concern Section 2 of that Act. In its original form, “§2 closely tracked the language of the [Fifteenth] Amendment” and, as a result, had little independent force. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 3). Our leading case on §2 at the