Protecting Rights Up and Down The Ballot

State elected officials are critical defenders of rights and freedoms, including access to the ballot box. From the lawmakers that pass bills that affect our rights, to the elected judges who interpret those laws, the ACLU is a trusted resource for voters to learn about where candidates for these critical offices stand on key issues.

This isn’t just hypothetical: officials across the country have taken action to protect their residents from attacks on our rights and freedoms. Through our Firewall for Freedom initiative, our efforts have helped secure over 135 executive, legislative, or municipal actions.

That’s why this cycle, the ACLU and the ACLU Voter Education Fund are spending over $13 million across six states on candidate races educating voters about candidates for state Supreme Court, secretaries of state, and state legislators.

• The ACLU and ACLU Voter Education Fund are educating and mobilizing voters in state Supreme Court races in Michigan, Montana, and North Carolina. And we’ve already contacted hundreds of thousands of voters in races this year in Wisconsin and Georgia.
• We're engaging voters in the Secretary of State race in Nevada and Arizona.
• We're engaging voters in difference-making state legislative races in North Carolina, Michigan, Montana, and Georgia.

Paid for in part by ACLU Voter Education Fund, 212-549-2500, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

The ACLU and ACLU Foundation are engaging in seven ballot measure campaigns that give voters the power to determine. This includes expanding the right to vote, protecting the right to abortion, fighting back against anti-trans measures, and protecting state courts from politicized judicial selections.

The ACLU and ACLU Foundation are working with our affiliates to support key ballot measures across the country, including:

• Kansas, where politicians are trying to change the nonpartisan judicial selection process for state supreme court justices to partisan elections and take control of the court.
• Missouri, where voters will have the opportunity in August to strike down politicians' attempt to upend the process for citizens to initiate ballot measures by requiring majorities in every gerrymandered congressional district; and oppose a second measure in November that would repeal the citizens-initiated reproductives freedom amendment passed in 2024, re-ban abortion, and place a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the state constitution.
• Montana, where voters have pushed a ballot measure to enshrine nonpartisan judicial elections in the state constitution, protecting a critical check on the anti-civil liberties majority in the state legislature and has protected access to abortion care, transgender healthcare, and other civil liberties.
• Virginia, where voters will have the opportunity this November to vote on a ballot measure amending the state constitution to protect reproductive freedom, including abortion, contraception, fertility care, and miscarriage management, securing abortion access in one of the only Southern states where abortion is legal.

Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc. and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., Anthony Romero, Executive Director, 125 Broad Street New York, NY 10004, authorized by Stop the Ban and Protect Majority Rule, and in coordination with Kansans United for Impartial Courts, in coordination with Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts, and in coordination with Virginians for Reproductive Freedom.