The Court ruled 5-4 on June 25, 2013. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act relied on decades-old data, from elections as far back as 1964, and no longer matched current conditions. The ruling left Section 5's preclearance rule in place, but with no formula, it covered no one. Congress had reauthorized the law in 2006 with a 98-0 Senate vote.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg compared ending preclearance to throwing away an umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet. Within hours, Texas said it would enforce a photo ID law that had been blocked under preclearance. North Carolina passed a sweeping voting law weeks later, which a federal court struck down in 2016.
Shelby County reshaped voting in the US. Polling place closures, purges and new ID rules followed in formerly covered places. In 2026, the Court further narrowed the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais.