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Voter Rights and Redistricting The Thernstroms discuss the legitimacy of the Voting Rights Act and the provisions that followed its implementation. Having suffered through three revisions, the authors argue that the Voting Rights Act became less of an effort of enfranchisement, and more of an effort towards ensuring black leadership in the government. They claim that the Voting Rights Act lost the moral clarity that it once had in the 1960s. The main conflict within the Voting Rights Act is whether or not the right to vote was included with the right to representation. Again, the Thernstroms feel that civil rights pessimism – the belief that racism remained pervasive and undiminished- had blinded voting rights advocates to a changed America’ The rewriting of Section 5 within the Voting Rights Act gave blacks power that was not initially intended. The provision placed the burden on the jurisdiction to prove the racial neutrality of its actions beyond a doubt. Districting and other voting-related changes became subject to federal veto if discrimination was suspected. Now there was a creation of unprecedented majority black districts drawn mainly to ensure racial neutrality. The Thernstroms argued that these provisions en