Obama defends voting oversight

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama argued Friday for keeping a key provision of federal votingrights law in place, saying it will become more difficult to help people who believe their rights have been violated if the Supreme Court decides to strike down that part of the law.

The court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday on a challenge from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham, to a section of the Voting Rights Act. The provision requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the South, to get approval from the Justice Department or federal court in Washington before making any changes in the way they hold elections, such as moving a polling place.

The appeal argues that places covered by the law have made such progress that Washington oversight is unnecessary.

In a radio interview tapedThursday at the White House and broadcast Friday morning, Obama said removing the oversight requirement would make it a lot harder to give relief to voters who feel aggrieved. If that were to happen, he said, such voters would have to wait until potential obstacles have been put in place before they could then sue in an attempt to have them overturned.

“So generally speaking, you’d see less protection before an election with respect to voting rights,” Obama said in the interview with SiriusXM host Joe Madison. “People could keep on coming up with new schemes each election.”

The federal requirement for advance approval, or preclearance, currently appliesto Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire.