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The 1970 Voting Rights Act made three counties of New York--Bronx, Kings (Brooklyn), and New York (Manhattan)--subject to the preclearance provisions of Section 5. Two of the counties (Bronx and Kings) also tripped the minority language trigger included in the 1975 Act.

Over the last quarter century, Latino registration and participation in New York state has generally tracked with the national trends for Latinos. In contrast, black registration and turnout has compared unfavorably with that in the rest of the nation.

African Americans have substantially increased the share of public offices that they hold since the three boroughs came under the coverage of Section 5. Latino officeholders remain far fewer in number than blacks and Latinos have enjoyed little growth in their numbers of officeholders and have even gone backwards in school board representation. Greater numbers of Blacks and Latinos have joined New York City’s congressional and state legislative delegations. Minorities hold most of the three covered boroughs New York city council seats.

Exit polls conducted among New York City voters reveal that white, black, and Latino voters generally support Democrats in national and statewide elections. In exit polls for mayoral elections, Anglos opposed minority voters in the past but since the late 1990s black and Hispanic voters have cast a sizeable minority of their votes--over 40% -- for white, Republican mayoral candidates. Ecological regression estimates for Bronx, Kings, and New York Counties show that only in Bronx County do white and minority preferences different.

Edward Blum is a visiting fellow at AEI.