Editing Civil Rights Act (section)

====Bail-in====
Section 3(c) contains a "bail-in" or "pocket trigger" process by which jurisdictions that fall outside the coverage formula of Section 4(b) may become subject to preclearance. Under this provision, if a jurisdiction has racially discriminated against voters in violation of the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments, a court may order the jurisdiction to have future changes to its election laws preapproved by the federal government.<ref name=bail-in />{{rp|2006–2007}} Because courts have interpreted the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to prohibit only intentional discrimination, a court may bail in a jurisdiction only if the plaintiff proves that the jurisdiction enacted or operated a voting practice to purposely discriminate.<ref name=bail-in />{{rp|2009}}

Section 3(c) contains its own preclearance language and differs from Section 5 preclearance in several ways. Unlike Section 5 preclearance, which applies to a covered jurisdiction until such time as the jurisdiction may bail out of coverage under Section 4(a), bailed-in jurisdictions remain subject to preclearance for as long as the court orders. Moreover, the court may require the jurisdiction to preclear only particular types of voting changes. For example, the bail-in of [[New Mexico]] in 1984 applied for 10 years and required preclearance of only redistricting plans. This differs from Section 5 preclearance, which requires a covered jurisdiction to preclear all of its voting changes.<ref name=bail-in />{{rp|2009–2010}}<ref name=section3>{{cite web |url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/42usc/subch_ia2.php#anchor_1973 |title=Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act |publisher=U.S. Department of Justice |access-date=March 4, 2013 |archive-date=February 24, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130224032531/http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/42usc/subch_ia2.php#anchor_1973 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

During the Act's early history, Section 3(c) was little used; no jurisdictions were bailed in until 1975. Between 1975 and 2013, 18 jurisdictions were bailed in, including 16 local governments and the states of Arkansas and New Mexico.<ref name=DOJbrief>{{cite web|title=Brief for the Federal Respondent, Shelby County v. Holder, 2013 United States Supreme Court Briefs No. 12-96|url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/about/app/briefs/shelbymerits.pdf|publisher=U.S. Department of Justice|access-date=December 8, 2013}}</ref>{{rp|1a-2a}} Although the Supreme Court held the Section 4(b) coverage formula unconstitutional in ''Shelby County v. Holder'' (2013), it did not hold Section 3(c) unconstitutional. Therefore, jurisdictions may continue to be bailed-in and subjected to Section 3(c) preclearance.<ref name="shelby" /><ref>{{cite news|agency=Associated Press|title=GOP Has Tough Choices on Voting Rights Act|url=https://news.yahoo.com/gop-tough-choices-voting-rights-act-151906183.html|access-date=January 8, 2014|newspaper=Yahoo! News|date=July 4, 2013}}</ref> In the months following ''Shelby County'', courts began to consider requests by the attorney general and other plaintiffs to bail in the states of Texas and North Carolina,<ref>{{cite news|last=Schwinn|first=Steven D.|title=Justice Department to Sue North Carolina over Vote Restrictions|url=http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2013/09/justice-department-to-sue-north-carolina-over-vote-restrictions.html|access-date=January 1, 2014|newspaper=Law Professor Blogs Network|date=September 30, 2013}}</ref> and in January 2014 a federal court bailed in [[Evergreen, Conecuh County, Alabama|Evergreen, Alabama]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Liptak|first=Adam|title=Judge Reinstates Some Federal Oversight of Voting Practices for an Alabama City|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/judge-reinstates-federal-oversight-of-voting-practices-for-alabama-city.html?_r=0|access-date=March 2, 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224015806/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/judge-reinstates-federal-oversight-of-voting-practices-for-alabama-city.html?_r=0|archive-date=February 24, 2021}}</ref>

A more narrow bail-in process pertaining to federal observer certification is prescribed in Section 3(a). Under this provision, a federal court may certify a non-covered jurisdiction to receive federal observers if the court determines that the jurisdiction violated the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. Jurisdictions certified to receive federal observers under Section 3(a) are not subject to preclearance.<ref name=Observers>{{cite journal|last=Tucker|first=James Thomas|title=The Power of Observation: The Role of Federal Observers Under the Voting Rights Act|journal=Michigan Journal of Race and Law|year=2007|volume=13|url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=mjrl|access-date=April 13, 2019}}</ref>{{rp|236–237}}