LYNDON JOHNSON signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965. It forbids states from imposing any "qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice or procedure [that denies or abridges] the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or colour". It was passed in response to the concerted efforts of officials in several states, most but not all of them southern, to prohibit minorities, often but not always African-Americans, from voting by passing byzantine voter-registration laws. Here is a nice little example of what rural voters in Alabama had to do, and if it does not make your blood boil then read it again. In order to vote—that is, in order to exercise the most fundamental right of American democracy—voters had to visit the registrar's office on the two or three mornings a month when it was open, usually during workdays. They had to swear to four pages of questioning under penalty of perjury. Many had to have an already-registered voter "vouch" for them. They had to read aloud or write down sections of the Constitution that the registrar read aloud. He in his sole judgment decided whether a prospective voter was "qualified". The VRA ended those practices, and with good reason, too. The right to vote does not extend only to "qualified" Americans. All of us have it, and if that means a candidate has to plead or pander, well, that is the price of democracy, which is, as Winston Churchill noted, "the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried".

It was no accident that Eric Holder, America's attorney general, chose to deliver a speech on voting rights at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin. The subject was the growing number of states that have enacted strict voter-ID laws, ostensibly to prevent voter fraud. There is just one problem: not only is voting fraud exceptionally rare, but most of those rare cases would not be prevented by the sorts of laws states are enacting, which generally require a government-issued photo ID. Such laws may be ineffective at preventing fraud, but they are extraordinarily effective at lowering turnout among black voters, students, the elderly and poor people. Now, those who support voter-ID laws that often say that even a hint of voter fraud taints the system, and that requiring voters to obtain, pay for and show a government-issued photo ID protects "integrity in elections". But let me admit something here. In my high school years I knew some people who had fake IDs to buy beer. If protecting the integrity of the system is more important than extending the voting franchise to as many people as are eligible to exercise it, why stop at photo IDs? Surely biometric identification, eye-scans, fingerprint sensors, even blood samples are absolutely essential to protect "the integrity of the system", no? If eliminating even the slightest possibility of voter fraud is the goal, then why not propose a system that would absolutely eliminate any prospect of fraud? Because otherwise, it seems as though voter-ID supporters are satisfied with half measures.

In any case, Mr Holder's speech laid out a moral case against such laws (and he did it far more subtly and with more lawlerly flair than I did in the paragraph above). It also laid out a welcome case for modernising election-registration procedures, though I will admit to being a bit uneasy about governments "compiling...a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction", and pardon me for not being completely calmed by Mr Holder's assurance that such lists "would be used solely to administer elections—and would protect essential privacy rights" (this is the same government that seems none too keen on habeas corpus, remember). Mr Holder signalled a willingness to push back against such laws, and against redistricting efforts that run afoul of the VRA. He will need it. This controversy has simmered since 2008. Expect it to boil next year.