American Civil Liberties Union

An impressive array of respected military and civilian leaders filed friend-of-the-court briefs today asking the Supreme Court to reject the president’s authority to indefinitely imprison a legal resident of the U.S. without charge or trial. The ACLU represents Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been detained in solitary confinement at a Navy brig in South Carolina since 2003.

Despite the many efforts to disenfranchise voters - whether nefarious or incompetent - an estimated 64% of voters cast a ballot this year, the best turnout in 100 years.

What was the ACLU's role in all of this?

In addition to providing over 35 state-specific voter empowerment cards, filing legal challenges in multiple states and joining Election Protection, the ACLU Voting Rights Project set up a voter information and assistance hotline to help people know their voting rights.

As Schoolhouse Rock put it so succinctly:

Oh, we were suffering until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote, no matter what age,
Then the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule. (Oh yeah!)

It was 88 years ago today that the 19th Amendment of the Constitution was certified, guaranteeing women the right to vote in this country. And this day brings cause to celebrate a huge step towards universal suffrage — or, put more simply, expanding the right to vote to every man and woman in America.

Big news out of Alabama this week. The ACLU and ACLU of Alabama filed a new lawsuit against election officials over the state’s expansive and unconstitutional voter disenfranchisement practices. Approximately 250,000 Alabamians have lost the right to vote because of a felony conviction — that’s one in 14 people in the state.