 Section 2 of the VRA contained a nationwide ban on any voting qualification or procedure that denied or abridged a citizen’s right to vote on account of race or color. The act went on to provide remedies to make the ban effective in jurisdictions that had been particularly egregious in their violations of the 15th Amendment. The remedies applied to jurisdictions that met two conditions (the “coverage formula”): 1) as of November 1964, the jurisdiction was using a literacy test or some similar device to determine eligibility to register, and 2) the proportion of eligible voters in the jurisdiction who were registered on that date, or who had turned out to vote in the election that year, was below 50%. The idea was that low overall registration or voting rates (under 50%) was an objective indicator that a sizeable proportion of the eligible voters were being denied access to the ballot for racially discriminatory reasons. Measures authorized for use against jurisdictions that met the coverage formula included the invalidation of literacy tests, the appointment of federal examiners to replace local registrars and to compile the voting rolls, and, under Section 5, the requirement to gain federal approval (typically from the Attorney General) for any changes in rules governing elections (“the preclearance requirement”). Seven southern states fell under the coverage formula. 