 In Shelby County, the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula of the VRA, thereby rendering impotent Section 5’s preclearance provision: with no coverage formula, no jurisdictions could be picked out as ones needing to receive federal approval for changing their electoral rules. The formula had been last updated in the early 1970’s, and, writing for the court, Chief Justice Roberts found that the use of the formula had become “irrational” in light of the “dramatic [racial] progress” that had been made in the intervening decades (554 and 556). He pointed out that the jurisdictions covered by the formula had rates of black voter registration and turnout as high, and in some cases higher, than the rates for whites, and that minorities had come to hold office “at unprecedented levels” (547) in those states.