More than 150 companies back update to Voting Rights Act

More than 150 companies, including PepsiCo, Amazon and Target, threw their support behind updating the Voting Rights Act in a letter released Wednesday.

The signatories, all U.S. employers, urged Congress to enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation that would restore a key provision of the 1965 law that was stripped out by the Supreme Court in 2013. The bill would again require jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get permission from the Department of Justice to make changes to their elections, using an updated formula to determine those jurisdictions.

The letter made no mention of Republican efforts to tighten voting rules across the country after former President Donald Trump's election loss, focusing instead on "deep inequities" exposed by the 2020 contest in "how our elections are run."

"Despite decades of progress, impediments to exercising the right to vote persist in many states, especially for communities of color. We need federal protections to safeguard this fundamental right for all Americans," the letter, obtained by NBC News, said.