EDITORIAL RECLASSIFICATION
TITLE 52, UNITED STATES CODE

BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHANGES

In 2014, provisions relating to voting and elections were transferred in the United States Code from titles 2 and 42 into a new Title 52, Voting and Elections. The transfers were necessary and desirable to create a well-organized, coherent structure for this body of law and to improve the overall organization of the United States Code. No statutory text was altered. The provisions were merely relocated from one place to another in the Code.

The decision to transfer provisions in the United States Code is taken very seriously. After careful study, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel concluded that certain organizational deficiencies in the Code had to be corrected, and that the short-term inconvenience of adjusting to new Code citations would be greatly outweighed by the benefit of making much needed long-term improvements in the organizational structure of the Code.

For the online version of the United States Code, the transfers occurred on September 1, 2014, after which the new Code citations were effective. For the printed version of the Code, the transfers occurred effective with supplement II of the 2012 edition.

BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR CHANGE

The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States organized into broad subject matter titles. In 1926, when the organizational structure of the Code was initially established, no separate title for voting and elections was created. At that time, only two federal statutory provisions relating to voting and elections were in existence.

Since 1960, an extensive body of federal statutory law relating to voting and elections has been enacted, including title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Upon enactment, each of those laws was incorporated into the existing structure of the Code in the most logical manner possible. However, as the body of federal statutory law relating to voting and elections grew and evolved, it became increasingly apparent that a separate title was needed. Title 52, Voting and Elections, provides a well-organized, coherent structure for this important body of law while simplifying the structure of titles 2 and 42.