A large number of interesting pieces on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Here’s a few interesting ones:  Washington Post The Hill NYTimes Washington Times While the majority of the Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality  of Section 5, it did open the door to more political entities having the ability to seek to opt out of the preclearance review.  Right now, in Florida, all government entities in Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe Counties are subject to having any election procedure changes precleared by the Justice Dept. or the courts, including such things as polling site changes.  This also causes all statewide election procedure changes to need preclearance as well.  The practical effect of this ruling, however, is probably small as the cost and political ramifications of filing such an action in federal court in D.C. to request an opt out is probably beyond most local governments.  In his dissent, Justice Thomas argued that this preclearance requirement has succeeded and therefore now lacks a constitutional basis for its continued existence.  The rest of the Court were not willing to go down that path yet, but it will interesting to see if any changes to the VRA are looked at in Congress over the next year to deal with the concerns the Court raised.