Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Breyer, J., dissenting
voter registration requirements. Prior to 1961, the registrar had simply refused to accept voter registration forms from black citizens. See United States v. Lynd, 301 F. 2d 818, 821 (CA5 1962). After 1961, those blacks who were allowed to apply to register had been subjected to a more difficult test than whites, while whites had been offered assistance with their less taxing applications. And the registrar, upon denying the applications of black citizens, had refused to supply them with an explanation. Id., at 822. The Government attacked these practices, and the Fifth Circuit enjoined the registrar from "[f]ailing to process applications for registrations submitted by Negro applicants on the same basis as applications submitted by white applicants." Id., at 823.
Mississippi's "immediate response" to this injunction was to impose a "good moral character requirement," Mississippi, supra, at 997, a standard this Court has characterized as "an open invitation to abuse at the hands of voting officials," Katzenbach, supra, at 313. One federal judge believed that this change was designed to avoid the Fifth Circuit's injunction by "defy[ing] a Federal Appellate Court determination that particular applicants were qualified [to vote]." Mississippi, supra, at 997. Such defiance would result in maintaining—though not, in light of the absence of blacks from the Forrest County voting rolls, in increasing— white political supremacy.
This is precisely the kind of activity for which § 5 was designed, and the purpose of § 5 would have demanded its application in such a case. See, e. g., Perkins, supra, at 395- 396 (Congress knew that the "Department of Justice d[id] not have the resources to police effectively all the States . . . covered by the Act," and § 5 was intended to ensure that States not institute "new laws with respect to voting that might have a racially discriminatory purpose"); Katzenbach, supra, at 314 (Prior to 1965, "[e]ven when favorable decisions ha[d] finally been obtained, some of the States affected ha[d]
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