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On Aug. 2, 2022, a federal district court in Texas ordered Texas Secretary of State John B. Scott to produce records responsive to National Voter Registration Act requests made by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas (ACLU Texas), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and DĒMOS. The requested records pertain to a state program that threatens to remove naturalized citizens from the voter rolls.
On Aug. 2, 2022, a federal district court in Texas ordered Texas Secretary of State John B. Scott to produce records responsive to National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requests made by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas (ACLU Texas), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and DĒMOS. The requested records pertain to a state program that threatens to remove naturalized citizens from the voter rolls.
On July 20, 2022, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and 14 bipartisan cosponsors introduced the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (ECRA) (S. 4573), and this vital legislation would update the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) and help prevent attempts to sabotage the results of presidential elections. In this position paper, Campaign Legal Center urges Congress to modernize the ECA without further delay.
On July 18, the plaintiffs amended their complaint against Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs challenging H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243, an extreme anti-voter law that imposes documentary proof of residence and citizenship requirements on voter registration, discriminates against naturalized U.S. citizens, Native Americans, Latinos and members of other racial and language minority communities, and strips certain voters of the right to vote in presidential elections and by mail. The amended complaint adds claims under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Voting Rights Act, includes new plaintiffs, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and Arizona Coalition for Change, and adds a challenge to H.B. 2243.
On April 6, Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Arizona Students’ Association and ADRC Action sent Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs an official letter giving her notice of the violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) caused by H.B. 2492. This letter is a prerequisite to suing under the NVRA.
The federal district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, allowing this case challenging New Jersey’s primary ballot design rules to proceed to discovery. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a brief with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice on behalf of the League of Women Voters and Salvation and Justice highlighting the harms that these flawed ballot design rules impose on voters, and particularly voters of color.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) submitted testimony in support of amending the Washington Voting Rights Act (WVRA) to include a preclearance system. CLC’s testimony focused on the benefits of preclearing election law changes to avoid costly litigation and prevent discriminatory voting practices from coming into effect, as well as the ease of administering a preclearance system.
On April 1, 2022, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) founder and president Trevor Potter submitted an expert statement to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a friend of the court brief on behalf several former Department of Justice attorneys in Arkansas NAACP v. State of Arkansas. In Arkansas NAACP v. State of Arkansas, organizations appealed a federal district court’s decision that private parties are not allowed to file lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
On March 30, 2022, the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee denied in large part Tennessee's motion to dismiss the Tennessee NAACP's challenge to the state's failed voting rights restoration process. The claims under the U.S. Constitution will proceed, as well as a claim that Tennessee has violated the National Voter Registration Act.
On March 31, LUCHA, LULAC, Arizona Students’ Association and ADRC Action filed suit against Arizona Secretary of State Hobbs challenging H.B. 2492, an extreme anti-voter law that imposes documentary proof of residence and citizenship requirements on voter registration, discriminates against naturalized U.S. citizens and strips certain voters of the right to vote in presidential elections and by mail.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) provided written testimony to the Committee on House Administration ahead of a Subcommittee on Elections hearing on Texas voting practices. CLC and our partners recently took Texas to court over its discriminatory, illegal voter purge that disproportionately targeted naturalized U.S. citizens who registered to vote after obtaining their citizenship, and the litigation ultimately resulted in a settlement agreement ending the state’s flawed voter purge program.
CLC submitted testimony in opposition to a new omnibus bill pending in the Georgia state legislature – HB 1464. The current version of the bill includes provisions allowing the Georgia Bureau of Investigations to intrude into the elections process, requiring any donation or gift (including food and water to voters) to be approved and distributed solely by the State Elections Board, and decreasing the number of voting machines at each precinct.
CLC with its partners on the DC Restore the Vote Coalition submitted testimony at the DC City Council’s oversight hearing for the DC Board of Elections (DC BOE). The testimony urges the DC BOE to make DC’s voter registration form accessible to eligible DC residents who are incarcerated in jails and the federal Bureau of Prisons and to adopt administrative practices to ensure ballot access for incarcerated voters.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas (ACLU Texas), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and DĒMOS filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Texas Secretary of State John B. Scott’s refusal to produce records responsive to their previous record requests made pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act. The requested records pertain to a state program that threatens to remove naturalized citizens from the voter rolls.
After Campaign Legal Center (CLC) won a preliminary injunction on behalf of the plaintiffs, the state of Kansas has agreed to a permanent injunction of its law prohibiting distribution of absentee ballot applications by out-of-state persons or entities.
In this November 2019 letter, the Tennessee Elections Division stated that Tennesseans with convictions from other states may register to vote if they have had their rights of citizenship restored by the state of conviction. The Elections Division later reversed their position, denying Ernest Falls' voter registration and prompting CLC's lawsuit.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a brief on the merits at the Tennessee Supreme Court on behalf of Ernest Falls, who has been denied the right to vote for failure to pay outstanding court costs from a 1986 felony conviction in Virginia, but Tennessee law does not authorize the Secretary of State to deny the right to vote to individuals with out-of-state convictions if they have had their full rights of citizenship restored in that other state, which Mr. Falls has. He seeks to appeal the decision of the Tennessee Court of Appeals at Nashville.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed an application to appeal at the Tennessee Supreme Court on behalf of Ernest Falls, who has been denied the right to vote for failure to pay outstanding court costs from a 1986 felony conviction in Virginia, but Tennessee law does not authorize the Secretary of State to deny the right to vote to individuals with out-of-state convictions if they have had their full rights of citizenship restored in that other state, which Mr. Falls has. He seeks to appeal the decision of the Tennessee Court of Appeals at Nashville.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint on behalf of Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM) against the Alabama Secretary of State for failure to comply with the National Voter Registration Act in rejecting GBM’s request for voter registration and voter purge records.