Press Releases
about Voting Rights

Congressman Darrell Issa sued to prevent California from counting mail ballots postmarked by election day and received within the following seven days, consistent with California law. If successful, literally hundreds of thousands of Californians will be disenfranchised at each election. The ACLU and its three California affiliates have sought to intervene in the case on behalf of the League of Women Voters of California to ensure that California voters are able to have their ballots counted consistent with state procedures.

On March 25, 2025, in a sweeping and unprecedented Executive Order, President Trump attempted to usurp the power to regulate federal elections from Congress and the States. Among other things, the Executive Order directs the Election Assistance Commission—an agency that Congress specifically established to be bipartisan and independent—to require voters to show a passport or other citizenship documentation in order to register to vote in federal elections. If implemented, the Executive Order would threaten the ability of millions of eligible Americans to register and vote and upend the administration of federal elections. On behalf of leading voter registration organizations and advocacy organizations, the ACLU and co-counsel filed a lawsuit to block the Executive Order as an unconstitutional power grab.

Selma Jubilee revelers annual trek across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama reminds us why we can never stop advocating for enfranchisement for Black Americans.

This case arises from the November 2024 election for state supreme court justice in North Carolina. Incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs defeated Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, but Griffin has filed a petition seeking to invalidate more than 65,000 votes from the election. He argues that the state Board of Elections impermissibly allowed 60,000 people to register without providing their driver’s licenses or social security numbers, and that the Board impermissibly allowed 5,500 overseas voters to cast absentee ballots without photo identification. The petition has resulted in both federal and state litigation, and the ACLU has submitted amicus briefs in both venues. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project and the ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief explaining that the petition’s attempt to cancel tens of thousands of votes threatens democratic backsliding in North Carolina. Separately, in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative and the ACLU of North Carolina submitted an amicus brief explaining that, even if the Board did make mistakes, cancelling votes as a consequence of those mistakes would violate the popular sovereignty provision of the North Carolina Constitution because voters relied on the Board to know how to register and vote.