As the lawsuits roll forward, top Justice Department officials are publicly praising the preclearance rule.

Speaking at the Johnson Presidential Library in Texas late last year, Attorney General Eric Holder called the provision the “keystone” of the Voting Rights Act. “The reality is that — in jurisdictions across the country — both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common,” Holder said.

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The head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Tom Perez, said the provision ensures that covered legislatures and cities protect the rights of minorities during redistricting and revisions to voting procedures.

“We need the prophylactic impact,” Perez said in an interview. “The remarkable impact … can’t simply be measured by the number of objections that we bring. It’s measured in behavioral changes.”

Perez acknowledged that the rule is under attack, but he predicted it will survive.

“Voting rights has been and continues to enjoy bipartisan support, not withstanding the cacophony of a few,” Perez said. “There’s a tendency around the nation to try to polarize so many issues, and I think the American people want us to come together around common values. And the right of access to the ballot for all eligible people is one of those common values.”

Yet even some liberals now believe that Section 5’s days are numbered, in part because of indications from the Supreme Court in 2009 that many justices doubt the most recent renewal of the law was constitutional.

Dan Tokaji, a professor of election law at Ohio State, said the chances the high court will strike down the core of the law are “between likely and extremely likely.”

“They know striking the statute down would be incredibly controversial. … It would be an even bigger deal than what the court did in Citizens United,” Tokaji said.

If the key provision were removed, he said, “I don’t think we would go back to the days of Jim Crow. We wouldn’t have literacy tests or other of the most blatant disenfranchising devices used in 1965. On the other hand, it would be easier for states to enact more subtle measures that make voting more difficult and that dilute the vote. … The impact will probably be most significant at the local level [where] a lot of things might slip by without anyone noticing it.”

Since minorities tend to vote Democratic, getting rid of Section 5 would seem to benefit Republicans. However, experts say tossing the provision might actually help Democrats because it could cut down on gerrymandered districts.

“Republicans have often been the most ardent supporters of Section 5,” Blum said. “It’s an old tale: Create a safe African-American or Hispanic district, and the districts surrounding those become more white.”

But Williams, the Fox news analyst and author of books on the civil rights movement, said some Republicans seem almost eager to go after the Voting Rights Act.

“When you have hard evidence of a past practice and you say you still don’t buy into it, then there does come a point where you say: ‘What is this really about? Repressing the minority vote?’” Williams said in an interview.

Williams said he thinks the current round of doubts about the law is also fueled by a perception that voter fraud is rampant, particularly in inner cities and areas with larger concentrations of minorities.

“There’s a racial element to this,” he said.