4962

JOINT RESOLUTIONS

Artistic Property, and the Chairman of the Maryland
Committee for the Humanities.

Signed May 20, 1982.

No. 8

(House Joint Resolution No. 5)

A House Joint Resolution concerning

The 1965 Voting Rights Act

FOR the purpose of requesting the President of the United
States and the Congress to extend the 1965 Voting
Rights Act.

The General Assembly of Maryland and the people of
Maryland believe that the 1965 Voting Rights Act was a
monumental achievement that extended the voting franchise to
all the citizens of America.

Although the turbulent days that surrounded the
enactment of the Act have passed, the need to ensure that
every American has the right to participate in the electoral
process is still present.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act will expire in August of
1982 if it is not extended. Extension of the Act will
continue to ensure that discriminatory practices, such as
literacy tests and poll taxes, are prohibited under Section
4 of the Act, which bans literacy tests nationwide.

It has been established that the pre-clearance
provisions of Section 5 are still necessary to protect
voters against potentially discriminatory voting procedures
by requiring that proposed changes in the voting laws of
certain jurisdictions be reviewed and cleared by federal
officials before these laws may become effective.

Continued protection also is needed for language

minorities who are currently covered until 1985 by

provisions of the Act requiring certain state and local
jurisdictions to provided assistance to voters not literate
or fluent in English.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act will clarify Section 2 by
amending it to expressly provide that a violation of the Act
can be proved by demonstrating discriminatory results rather
than by establishing or proving the discriminatory intent of
an action; now, therefore, be it