The Voting Rights Act has been instrumental in protecting the right to vote for generations. The Supreme Court will consider a key provision of this landmark civil rights law in Shelby County v. Holder. This summary explains the history and importance of the Act for minority voters and why the Court must uphold the law.
At a time when political operatives are trying to make it harder for some Americans to participate in the democratic process, community-based voter registration drives continue to increase the number of eligible Americans registered to vote.
In recent years, state legislatures have attempted to make it harder for voter registration drives to operate. This comprehensive review analyzes the most onerous aspects of state restrictions on voter registration drives and provides a state-by-state snapshot of these laws.
The Brennan Center submitted letters to election officials in several Ohio Counties urging them to take steps to ensure that provisional ballots are not rejected due to inflexible and unreliable exact-match verification procedures. Such procedures routinely identify registered voters as unregistered, and can lead to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters because of minor typos by election officials.
The dramatic national effort to restrict Americans' voting rights was met this year with an equally dramatic pushback by courts, citizens, the Department of Justice, and farsighted public officials.
