Election Protection is an American Democratic coalition of voting rights activists. [1] [2] The English language hotline is managed by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national civil rights organization, and accepts complaints from individuals. The Spanish hotline is managed by the NALEO Educational Fund. [1] They also offer hotlines in multiple Asian languages, Arabic, ASL, and have a disability rights hotline. [3]
It was founded in 2002. [4] Election Protection is non-partisan [5] and one of the largest [6] voter protection coalitions in the country. [5] consisting of over 100 local, state and national partners, [7]
In the 2006 general election it received 13,500 reports of voting problems, and considered a fifth of them serious. [8] It received 31,000 calls in 2018. [5] During the 2020 general election, its national hotline received over 230,000 calls. [9]
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. Designed to enforce the voting rights protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country. The National Archives and Records Administration stated: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War".
The Greens is a political party in Poland.
Theodore Edward Rokita is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 44th and current Attorney General of Indiana. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served two terms as Secretary of State of Indiana from 2002 to 2010. When Rokita was elected to office in 2002 at age 32, he became the youngest secretary of state in the United States at the time.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is an American civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy.
Thomas John Perrelli is an American lawyer and the former United States associate attorney general. He served as associate attorney general during the administration of President Barack Obama. Perrelli also served as deputy assistant attorney general of the United States in the late 1990s.
Sue Weisenbarger Kelly is an American businesswoman and politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2007, representing New York's 19th District. She was elected to the seat that had been held by Republican Hamilton Fish IV after he dropped out of the 1994 race due to prostate cancer. Kelly defeated his son, Hamilton Fish V, in that race and served until John Hall defeated her in the 2006 congressional election.
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights is a consortium of American law firms in Chicago that provides legal services in civil rights cases
Bradley Joseph Schlozman is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. A member of the Republican Party, Schlozman was appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, replacing Todd Graves, and he assumed that office on March 23, 2006. In April 2007, Schlozman left the U.S. Attorney position to work at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. He was succeeded by John F. Wood as US attorney.
The Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative, also known as Massachusetts Ballot Question 2, was an initiated state statute that replaced prior criminal penalties with new civil penalties on adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana. The initiative appeared on the November 4, 2008, ballot in Massachusetts.
Vote.org, formerly Long Distance Voter, is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is based in the United States. It provides online voter guides for every state, including voter registration forms, absentee ballot applications, and information on deadlines, directions, and ID and residency requirements. The organization is best known for large-scale voter registration programs, registering 4 million voters in the 2020 election cycle alone.
The California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA) is a State Voting Rights Act (SVRA) in the state of California. It makes it easier for minority groups in California to prove that their votes are being diluted in "at-large" elections by expanding on the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that there are certain conditions that must be met in order to prove that minorities are being disenfranchised: that the affected minority group is sufficiently large to elect a representative of its choice, that the minority group is politically cohesive, and that white majority voters vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority group's preferred candidates; the CVRA eliminated one of these requirements. Unlike the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is a federal law, the CVRA does not require plaintiffs to demonstrate a specific geographic district where a minority is concentrated enough to establish a majority. Certain cities that have never had minority representation or have a history of minority candidate suppression can be liable for triple damages and be forced to make changes within 90 days. That makes it easier for minority voters to sue local governments and eliminate at-large elections. The Act was eventually signed into law on 9 July 2002.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) formerly known as Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles (Advancing Justice LA), is a non-profit legal aid and civil rights organization dedicated to advocacy, providing legal services and education and building coalitions on behalf of the Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities. AJSOCAL was founded in 1983 as the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC).
Barbara Ruth Arnwine served as the executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law from 1989 until 2015. Born in southern California, Arnwine is a graduate of Scripps College and Duke University School of Law. After graduating from Duke Law School, she stayed in Durham and worked for the Durham Legal Assistance Program and as a Reginald Huber Smith fellow. She moved on to the legal service's head office in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1979, working on affirmative action policies, reviewing contracts, and legal aid programs. In the 1980s she served as executive director of the Boston Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights.
Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. After the American Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, but poll taxes or language tests were used to limit and suppress the ability to register or cast a ballot. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 improved voting access. Since the beginning of voter suppression efforts, proponents of these laws have cited concerns over electoral integrity as a justification for various restrictions and requirements, while opponents argue that these constitute bad faith given the lack of voter fraud evidence in the United States.
In the United States, a person may have their voting rights suspended or withdrawn due to the conviction of a criminal offense. The actual class of crimes that results in disenfranchisement vary between jurisdictions, but most commonly classed as felonies, or may be based on a certain period of incarceration or other penalty. In some jurisdictions disfranchisement is permanent, while in others suffrage is restored after a person has served a sentence, or completed parole or probation. Felony disenfranchisement is one among the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and the loss of rights due to conviction for criminal offense. In 2016, 6.1 million individuals were disenfranchised on account of a conviction, 2.47% of voting-age citizens. As of October 2020, it was estimated that 5.1 million voting-age US citizens were disenfranchised for the 2020 presidential election on account of a felony conviction, 1 in 44 citizens. As suffrage rights are generally bestowed by state law, state felony disenfranchisement laws also apply to elections to federal offices.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is an American conservative legal group based in Alexandria, Virginia, which is known for suing states and local governments to purge voters from election rolls. The nonprofit was constituted in 2012.
George Wilmarth "Wiley" Nickel III is an American attorney and Democratic politician serving as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 13th congressional district since 2023.
The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced as H.R. 1, is a bill in the United States Congress intended to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, ban partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.
Kristen M. Clarke is an American attorney who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice since May 2021. Clarke previously served as president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She also managed the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office under Eric Schneiderman.
After the 2020 United States presidential election, the campaign for incumbent President Donald Trump and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting, and the vote certification process in 9 states and the District of Columbia.