The most-watched case of the Supreme Court's last term, which ended in June, invited the justices to hold unconstitutional a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The law required certain jurisdictions--largely in the Old South--to "pre-clear" any changes in their electoral systems with the Department of Justice. It was intended to prevent states with poor civil rights histories from changing their voting systems in ways that would keep blacks from voting. From the questions asked by the justices at the oral argument, the betting among the cognoscenti was that the Court's five-person conservative majority would strike down the law on the notion that things had changed and federal supervision was no longer necessary.