[1] The bill was written in response to the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, which struck down the system that was used to determine which jurisdictions were subject to that requirement.

[4] On November 3, 2021, the bill failed to pass the Senate after falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.

[6]Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (also known as the VRA) stated that some jurisdictions needed to seek approval from the federal government to implement certain changes to their election laws.

[7] To receive approval for new election laws, the jurisdiction would have to prove to either a three judge panel of a Washington, D.C. court or the US Attorney General that the new procedure would not negatively impact the right to vote on the basis of race or other minority status.

[8] On June 25, 2013, the United States Supreme Court struck down section 4(b) by a 5–4 decision in the case of Shelby County v. Holder.

[8][9] The Supreme Court ruling allowed many states to begin putting in new restrictive laws regarding the right to vote.

[12] Research from the Brennan Center suggests that some 2 million more people were purged from voter rolls between 2012 and 2016 than would have been if Section 5 of the VRA had been left in place.

[15] One policy in particular limited early voting on Sundays, which North Carolina admitted in court was because counties that offered it were likely to have higher black populations.

[16][17] HB 589 was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on the basis that the law was designed to "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision".

[24][25][26][27][28][29] The first provision in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act strengthens voter protections in Section 2 in response to Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

"[30][31] The next portion of the act reinstates the federal pre-clearance requirement for new election procedures in certain states by creating a new formula that satisfies Shelby County v. Holder.

[30] Any change that would reduce, relocate, or consolidate voting locations (including early, absentee, and election day voting locations), or reduce the number of days or hours of early voting on Sundays would be subjected to the pre-clearance requirement if they meet either of these criteria: Any change to election policy that adds a new reason to remove a person from a voter roll or puts in place a new process to remove a person from the voter roll must seek federal pre-clearance (if it is a jurisdiction within the state): And if the state itself is imposing such a change then it must seek pre-clearance if: For the states that already met the requirements for federal pre-clearance under the new formula provided, the bill states that they will also have to seek approval for any new procedure under the new covered practices.

[43] In July 2021, over 150 companies signed a letter supporting the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, including Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, PepsiCo, IKEA, Nestlé USA, Macy's, and Target, among many others.

Originally planned to have been included in the For the People Act, Democratic leadership decided to keep it separate because of anticipated court challenges.

H.Con.Res.107 was agreed to in the House to change the short title of the bill to the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.