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Legal Issues in the Glades County Elections Case
Voting Rights and Equal Protection
The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1870, prohibits states from abridging the right to vote on the basis of race. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, among other things, eliminated certain devices - such as literacy tests - that states, particularly in the South, were using to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment and further restrict black voters.
The ACLU asserts that the at-large election method currently being employed in Glades County is denying Glades' African-American voters the right to vote on an equal basis with white voters - a violation of both the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act.
The ACLU also argues in this case that the voting procedures violate rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of equal protection under the law.
