Voter suppression takes many forms.

Reducing the number of polling places is one of them.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 required approval  by the U.S. Justice Department before polling places could be closed in states with a history of voter suppression.

However, the Supreme Court struck down the pre-clearance provision in 2013.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Justice Ginsburg was an astute weather forecaster.

More than a thousand polling places have been closed in states freed from this review.

There are concerns that this could happen here.

To prevent that, the House of Delegates adopted an amendment to House Bill 35 today, requiring that this year’s elections be “conducted at a total number of precinct polling places that were open for in-person voting on election day in the 2018 statewide general election.”