With one contentious election behind it, the Supreme Court this week will consider the rules for the next, and how federal law protects minority voters as states across the nation race to revamp their regulations.

The court on Tuesday will review the shield provided by the Voting Rights Act (VRA), first passed in 1965 to forbid laws that result in discrimination based on race.

The cases at the Supreme Court involve two voting regulations from Arizona that are in common use across the country. One throws out the ballots of those who vote in the wrong precinct. The other restricts who may collect ballots cast early for delivery to polling places, a practice then-President Donald Trump denounced as “ballot harvesting.”

But the greater impact will be the test that the increasingly conservative court develops for proving violations of the VRA, as new laws are proposed and state legislatures begin redrawing congressional and legislative districts following the 2020 Census.

Reacting to Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud, Republican-led legislatures are racing to enact new laws that cut back on easements to voting implemented in part by the coronavirus pandemic. Even if investigations by Trump’s Justice Department and other Republican officials failed to substantiate the charges, they say changes are need to assure public confidence in election outcomes….

More…