While the prevailing perception has been that voting rights in the United States are universally guaranteed, our state-by-state system of election laws means access to voting and the cornerstones of our democracy vary widely depending on where a voter lives. Uneven access to democratic participation, coupled with the increasing partisan attacks on and attempts to control our election systems, reveals the need for renewed federal legislation that sets a more consistent and independent standard and process across the country. In the absence of the preclearance requirements struck from the federal Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013, a growing number of states have enacted state-level voting rights acts (VRAs) which seek to achieve similar goals to the federal law. Although state voting rights acts differ in scope, they generally provide new legal tools to fight voter suppression in court and create protections against voter intimidation and racial discrimination, among many other critical safeguards.
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Federal & State Voting Rights Acts
Related Resources
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