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Arkansas, once the center of controversy and symbolism in the confrontation over civil rights, has been quiet in the debate over voting rights. The state is one of two southern states covered neither in whole or in part by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  The state has a history of the use of discriminatory devices such as the poll tax, but the levels of voter participation in the1964 presidential election were sufficiently robust to not trip the VRA trigger.

In the two most critical “voting assessment” categories--voter registration and election participation--blacks in the majority of section 5 states are usually as successful and often, more successful, than blacks in Arkansas.

Currently, African-American voters in Arkansas are nearly as often registered as whites in Arkansas although they register at lower rates than do blacks in Section 5 states. African-American turnout typically trails that for white Arkansans, blacks in the non-South and, over the last decade, blacks in the section 5 South.  Black office holding increased substantially over the last three decades and especially since 1993, but black legislative office holding has not increased appreciably in either chamber since the beginning of the 1990s. A brief flurry of black county office holding in the 1970s has been followed by the effective disappearance of blacks from county office for over 20 years.  Black officeholders are not evident in congressional and statewide office, though Democrats continue to be highly competitive for the white vote, especially when running as incumbents.

Edward Blum is a visiting fellow at AEI.