Voting Rights & Elections

To date, the ACLU‘s Voting Rights Project has filed over 300 lawsuits to enforce the provisions of the VRA and the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU challenges laws that diminish free speech and our democratic process, including the extensive administrative problems with our voter registration system, as well as the burdensome and unlawful statutes that make it difficult for minor political parties and independent candidates to get on the ballot. Additionally, the ACLU supports various election reforms that are consistent with the one person, one vote standard of the Fourteenth Amendment, including abolishing the existing Electoral College system for choosing the president and vice-president, abolishing laws that disfranchise students and people who are homeless, and allowing same day voter registration. The ACLU also challenges election systems that dilute fights to restore the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people, who can have their right to vote revoked for periods ranging from the time spent incarcerated to a lifetime.