Today, the Minnesota Senate passed the Minnesota Voting Rights Act (MNVRA) — landmark pro-voter legislation that will strengthen the freedom to vote for all Minnesotans, including voters of color who have historically been denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. The legislation, which passed the Minnesota House Monday, will now head to Governor Tim Walz’s desk for his signature.

Upon enacting the MNVRA, Minnesota will become the seventh state to adopt a state-level Voting Rights Act (state VRA). The MNVRA provides Minnesotans — particularly Black, Indigenous and other Minnesotans of color — necessary state-law protections against racial discrimination in voting.

“The Minnesota Voting Rights Act will help ensure that Minnesotans of color can continue to make their voices heard at the ballot box and elect representatives of their choice,” said Lata Nott, senior legal counsel for voting rights at Campaign Legal Center. “It is heartening to see legislators come together to pass common-sense, pro-voter legislation that solidifies and builds upon the protections in the federal Voting Rights Act. At the end of the day, this legislation takes steps toward a more equitable government where  every voice is heard and every vote counts equally.”

In the decade following 2013’s disastrous Shelby County v. Holder ruling that gutted the federal Voting Rights Act, federal courts have continued to chip away at voting rights — and a gridlocked Congress has done nothing to stem the tide. This MNVRA, sponsored by Rep. Emma Greenman and Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, solidifies and expands upon the federal VRA and provides Minnesotans robust state law protections against racial discrimination in voting.

The Minnesota Voting Rights Act: 

• Provides Minnesota voters with a “private right-of-action” in state law to sue against racially discriminatory voting policies.
• Protects voters from voter suppression, or racially discriminatory voting policies and procedures that impair access to the ballot.
• Protects voters from vote dilution, including election systems and voting districts that cancel out or minimize the voting power of people of color, keeping them from electing their preferred candidates.
• Makes it easier for voters experiencing discrimination to fight back in court and through collaborative non-court processes.
• Enshrines the “democracy canon,” a rule requiring courts to interpret all election-related laws in favor of voters and their equal right to participate in the political process.

Read the legislation (scroll to line 54.1) here.

Campaign Legal Center is active in directly advocating for and providing state partners with legal and policy support to help state VRAs get passed in state legislative chambers — including in Minnesota. CLC also files lawsuits to enforce state VRAs on behalf of communities of color, including the first case brought under the Washington Voting Rights Act.

Learn more about state VRAs here.

Today, the U.S. House Committee on House Administration held a hearing on purported noncitizen voting. The hearing, chaired by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wi.), comes on the heels of high-profile press conferences featuring former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

 During one such press conference, Speaker Johnson admitted to reporters that his unsubstantiated claims about noncitizen voting were “not easily provable” but something he knew “intuitively.” Coinciding with this, lawmakers have also introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require states to collect proof of U.S. citizenship before registering voters.  

After the hearing, Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, released the following statement:  

“Once again, self-interested politicians are trying to undermine trust in the electoral process. Noncitizen voting simply does not occur at any meaningful level. It’s a fabrication being peddled, for personal and political gain, by leaders who should know better.

“Shameful bills like the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act often result in eligible U.S. citizens being incorrectly prevented from voting or being forced to jump through additional hoops to exercise their freedom to vote. Campaign Legal Center opposes this bill. Our democracy works best when all voters can participate, but anti-voter bills like the SAVE Act use false conspiracy theories to divide us, cut Americans out of the political process, and sow distrust in our elections.”  

Background: False claims of noncitizen voting are often used to justify attempts to roll back the freedom to vote. Instances of noncitizens attempting to vote are exceedingly rare, largely due to the threat of existing penalties (including imprisonment and potential deportation) and the fact that noncitizen voting is already a crime that federal immigration officers look into during the naturalization process.

In fact, a Brennan Center analysis of the 2016 election found 30 incidents of suspected (not confirmed) noncitizen voting out of more than 23 million votes cast in their study. That amounts to less than 0.0001% of votes cast. 

Today, a federal judge permanently blocked a severely restrictive provision of Florida’s anti-voter law, SB 7050, that targeted nonpartisan civic engagement groups with substantial fines if noncitizens — including legal permanent residents — helped with nonpartisan voter registration drives.

The order comes weeks after trial in LWVFL v. Moody, a case challenging SB 7050’s severe restrictions on voter registration. Last year, three sets of plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL), the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, Hispanic Federation, and Poder Latinx, challenged the law. Campaign Legal Center represents LWVFL in its challenge to the law, which restricts and penalizes basic nonpartisan civic engagement efforts. 

Specifically, today’s order strikes down a portion of the law that punished those groups with a $50,000 fine each time a noncitizen volunteer helped with voter registration work. The state never gave a coherent reason for discriminating against noncitizens and, today, Chief Judge Mark Walker ruled that the provision violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

“We applaud today’s ruling, which strikes down one of SB 7050’s outrageous and problematic restrictions on Florida residents participating in basic democracy-building work that organizations like the League of Women Voters of Florida engage in every day,” said Brent Ferguson, senior legal counsel at Campaign Legal Center. “Folks helping their neighbors access and exercise their freedom to vote is one of the pillars of our democracy — and it’s something that we should encourage, not punish.”   

"Today's ruling by Judge Walker permanently enjoining the citizenship restriction in Senate Bill 7050 is a significant victory for equal protection under the law," said Cecile M. Scoon, Esq., co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. "This favorable decision ensures that every person, regardless of citizenship status, can assist the League and other voting organizations in registering all citizens, some of whom may need to communicate more clearly in a language other than English. This ruling will enable all citizens to participate more fully in our democracy."

"The permanent injunction against the citizenship restriction in Senate Bill 7050 marks a crucial step in safeguarding democracy in Florida," said Debbie Chandler, Esq., co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. "The unfair limitations these provisions placed on immigrants hindered the essential work of League members and volunteers who assist voters in registering to vote across our state. This victory, achieved in partnership with the Hispanic Federation, reinforces our commitment to ensuring an accessible and equitable voting process for all citizens."

"The court's decision to permanently enjoin this undemocratic provision reminds us that a democracy is strongest when all residents are active," said Celina Stewart, chief counsel at the League of Women Voters of the US. "Volunteer voter assistance has been at the heart of the League's mission for over 100 years. We're experts at supporting voter registration efforts and rely on the whole community to accomplish our mission, regardless of citizenship status."

After today’s ruling, there remain undecided three provisions of SB 7050 challenged in this case. CLC and LWVFL are hopeful that the Court will also strike down the remaining provisions challenged in their suit.  

Learn more about the suit here.

Today, the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral argument in Petteway v. Galveston County, TX — a case challenging discriminatory, “mean-spirited” and “egregious” voting districts passed in Galveston that silence Black and Latino voters and threaten to undermine a component of the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA).

In 2021, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the UCLA Voting Rights Project and Neil Baron joined the ongoing redistricting fight, which began in 2013, to represent Galveston County voters against racial discrimination by Galveston County in its voting maps.

Following today’s hearing, Valencia Richardson, legal counsel for voting rights at Campaign Legal Center, issued the following statement: 

“Today’s hearing illustrated a fundamental fact: Galveston County’s Black and Latino voters deserve an opportunity to make their voices heard in county government. For too long, Galveston County’s Black and Latino voters have faced discrimination in voting — a situation exacerbated by the reality that they are now being forced to vote in 2024 under a discriminatory map deemed illegal, ‘mean-spirited’ and  ‘egregious’ by a federal judge.

“Justice cannot and should not have to wait any longer. We urge the Fifth Circuit to uphold its own prior precedent in affirming coalition claims under the Voting Rights Act and to protect the freedom to vote for all Galvestonians.”

Background: On October 13, 2023, a federal district court judge ruled that Galveston County’s 2021 redistricting plan, which he called “mean-spirited” and “egregious,” violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. In that ruling, the judge ordered the county to draw new, fair maps in time for the start of the November 11, 2023 candidate filing period for the 2024 Commissioners Court elections. 

However, Galveston County appealed the ruling to a panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit of Appeals and was able to temporarily block new maps from being drawn — even as the judges agreed with the facts of the district court ruling. The full Fifth Circuit eventually took up the appeal, but CLC and our clients argued that fair districts should be in place while the appeals process was ongoing. In December 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.

Now, Galveston County’s 2024 elections will be conducted under a map, known as Map 2, that a federal judge ruled illegal and discriminatory in October 2023. Unfortunately, Map 2 does not allow Black and Latino voters to elect a representative of choice for the Commissioners Court in any of the county’s four districts.

This case threatens to undermine a component of the Voting Rights Act: ‘coalition districts,’ which ensure that voters from different marginalized groups who live in the same area, have similar interests, face a shared history of past and present-day discrimination, and form a majority within the district can still elect candidates who best serve their communities. When voters of color in a coalition district sue for fair representation under the Voting Rights Act — as Black and Latino voters did in Galveston, TX — this is called a ‘coalition claim.’ The Fifth Circuit explicitly upheld coalition claims as constitutional in Campos v. City of Baytown, TX.

More information about the case can be found here.

Yesterday, Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center and Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, submitted a letter to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, urging immediate action to advance to the Senate floor three bipartisan bills addressing artificial intelligence (AI) in our elections.

The letter comes ahead of tomorrow’s Senate Rules Committee markup on the three bipartisan bills — the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, the AI Transparency in Elections Act of 2024 and the Preparing Election Administrators for AI Act — that each address the unique and unprecedented challenges AI creates for elections from varying angles.

“2024 will be the first election cycle where Artificial Intelligence is widely used from beginning to end — and there are very real concerns that this new technology could be used to deceive voters and manipulate our electoral process,” said Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center. “These recently introduced, bipartisan bills are a constitutionally grounded response to this risk that provide desperately needed transparency for the growing political use of this technology and provide protection for its most dangerous applications. For the sake of our country, they must be considered and passed without delay.”  

These bipartisan bills provide a complementary response to the challenges AI creates for elections. The bills provide necessary transparency for the growing political uses of this technology, prohibit its most dangerous applications for our democracy, and ensure that election officials are prepared to address the threat of AI to their critical work. The proposed policies enjoy widespread support from the American public.

Last year, CLC president Trevor Potter testified to the committee at a hearing, “AI and the Future of our Elections,” that addressed the looming threat of AI in elections. His testimony focused on how AI tools could be used to easily generate and spread political communications that are deceptive or fraudulent, and the urgent need for policymakers to address the potential impacts of this technology on our democracy.  

Now, with the November election less than six months away and the committee marking up three bipartisan, common-sense bills, Congress must act without delay.

Learn more about steps our government can take to address the threat of AI in our elections here.