The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, are representing the rights of voters by intervening in a lawsuit that seeks to make it harder for Americans across the country to register to vote, including in the upcoming 2024 election. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at promoting access to voter registration and election information to eligible voters on a nonpartisan basis. Now, on the eve of the 2024 election, a small group of political candidates and election administrators seek to block the executive order, based on speculation and unfounded claims of election manipulation and noncitizen voting. The ACLU and its partners are fighting to preserve the ability of eligible Americans to register to vote, in accordance with federal law.

In 2020, in a nearly unanimous bipartisan vote, Mississippi joined eighteen other states in accepting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrived after Election Day (in Mississippi’s case, up to five business days). This lawsuit by partisan actors seeks to disenfranchise these voters whose ballot is mailed by Election Day but—through no fault of their own—does not arrive until afterwards. In Mississippi, this harm will fall disproportionately on voters with disabilities, older voters, and other communities that rely upon absentee voting. Twisting the words and meaning of Congress, the RNC argues that three longstanding federal laws that set a uniform election day for federal races require that ballot may only be counted if they are received by election officials by Election Day. If accepted, this radical argument would not only disenfranchise thousands upon thousands of voters in Mississippi and eighteen other states, but also upend election administration in every state.

Does Congress have authority (as it has long done) to regulate all federal elections, including presidential elections—such as through key federal voting rights laws like the NVRA, UOCAVA, and the MOVE Act?

This lawsuit challenges Kansas’ documentary proof-of-citizenship law which requires people, when they register to vote, to show documents to prove their citizenship. It violates the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law designed to make it easier for Americans to register to vote and maintain their registrations.