text:  Questions about the future of the Voting Rights Act after a redistricting lawsuit in Arkansas recently took an unusual turn. More from NPR's Hansi Lo Wang. For decades, protections against racial discrimination in elections under the Voting Rights Act, Section 2, have been enforced mainly through lawsuits by private individuals and groups. But a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that private individuals and groups are not allowed to sue because they're not explicitly named in the words of Section 2. That ruling applies only to seven states in the Midwest and South.