“If someone is a victim of a home invasion, it would be hard to convince that person to leave his door unlocked even 50 years later,” said Clarke County Supervisor J. Michael Hobert. Responding to the expressed concerns of African-American residents in the county, Hobert joined a majority of his fellow supervisors in voting not to “bail out” of provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

The Berryville Citizens Association, an organization of African-American residents, led the fight for this vote. Roland Clarke, president of the organization, called the vote “Great news!” He went on to say, “This is the first county in Virginia where the bailout was not permitted — also the first county in Virginia to fight the bailouts.”

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed in reaction to national outrage over brutal attacks on civil rights workers in Selma, Alabama, and elsewhere. It has been renewed several times, and continues to regulate state and local governments to protect the voting rights of people of color and other groups.

Certain jurisdictions, especially in the South, have particular restrictions that require them to get approval for voting-related changes. Some local officials consider these requirements a burden, and the Voting Rights Act gives them a way to “bail out” if they have a clean record over a ten-year period.

Since 1982, this bailout provision has been used only in Virginia, by counties and cities using the services of Alexandria attorney J. Gerald Hebert, formerly with the U.S. Department of Justice. The jurisdictions that have “bailed out” include the counties of Frederick, Shenandoah, Roanoke, Rockingham, Essex, Botetourt, Warren, Greene, Augusta and the cities of Salem, Winchester, and Harrisonburg. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in 2006, Hebert called Virginia “the bailout capital of the world.”