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In June 2024, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky challenging a provision in Kentucky election law that mandates the removal of voters from voter registration rolls without following procedures required by federal law. The plaintiff, represented by Fair Elections Center and Kentucky Equal Justice Center, argues that amendments to state law in 2021 regarding voter removals under Kentucky House Bill 574 clearly violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
In April of 2023, Fair Elections Center filed a lawsuit against Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Coles James, challenging Youngkin’s resurrection of an unconstitutionally arbitrary system for restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions.
In June 2024, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky challenging a provision in Kentucky election law that mandates the removal of voters from voter registration rolls without following procedures required by federal law. The plaintiff, represented by Fair Elections Center and Kentucky Equal Justice Center, argues that amendments to state law in 2021 regarding voter removals under Kentucky House Bill 574 clearly violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin moved to intervene in a state court lawsuit filed in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. The lawsuit alleged that Wisconsin law required the Wisconsin Elections Commission to use information provided by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to flag voters who may have moved, and to cancel the registration of voters who do not respond within 30 days to a letter sent by the Commission, asking the voters to update or confirm their addresses.
In April of 2023, Fair Elections Center filed a lawsuit against Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Coles James, challenging Youngkin’s resurrection of an unconstitutionally arbitrary system for restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions.
Our client submitted his voting rights restoration application to the previous Kentucky Governor, Matt Bevin, but Bevin never acted on his application. Bevin’s successor, Andrew Beshear, concluded that our client’s and all of the other nearly 900 applications pending, were denied by Bevin’s inaction. He also concluded that these nearly 900 individuals would need to reapply. Due process requires that these applicants be provided with notice of the change in their applications’ status. We have sued in state court to enforce this.
In 2019, Fair Elections Center and the Kentucky Equal Justice Center joined a lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s arbitrary process for voting rights restoration for felons. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of eight former felons.
Fair Elections Center along with Wisconsin-based Law Forward, filed a complaint on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in Dane County Circuit Court, seeking both clarity and protection for absentee voters whose ballots have technical defects.
In February 2024, Wisconsin courts have rejected the Wisconsin State legislature’s bid to block relief for absentee voters won by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin’s lawsuit. On January 30, the League, represented by Law Forward, Fair Elections Center, and Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, secured an order from the Dane County Circuit Court that protects four categories of absentee ballots with purported defects in the address recorded by the voter’s witness. That ruling relied on the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibits denying the right to vote for technical errors or omissions that are not material to determining a voter’s eligibility.
In June 2024, the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans, represented by Fair Elections Center and LeVan Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, filed a lawsuit against the Lancaster County Board of Elections to challenge the rejection of mail-in and absentee ballots that are missing the last two digits of the year from the handwritten date on the outer return envelope.
A month later, as part of a mandatory directive to all 67 county Boards of Elections, the Pennsylvania Department of State has instructed the full year to be pre-printed on the return envelope for mail-in and absentee ballots, instead of requiring voters to complete the last two digits of the year by hand. Having achieved what it set out to accomplish, PARA voluntarily discontinued its lawsuit.
Because of Wisconsin’s witness requirement for mail-in absentee ballots, at-risk voters who live alone must choose between endangering their lives and exercising their right to vote, or foregoing their vote altogether. On March 26, 2020, we filed a lawsuit challenging this rule as unconstitutionally burdensome during the pandemic. Our clients include individual voters who are at risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19.
Fair Elections Center and Hogan Lovells filed a complaint in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on behalf of a voter who in June, 2020 was disenfranchised when she was forced to choose between her health and her right to have her voice heard. The lawsuit seeks options to ensure voters who haven’t received their requested ballots and who cannot vote in person due to Covid-19 risk can still receive their ballots in time to vote.
Despite the success of expanded, no-excuse absentee voting in Kentucky’s June 2020 primary election state officials did not take action to use the same rules to make voting safe for the general election during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fair Elections Center, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, and Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird LLP filed a case to force the state to use the same successful process and ensure a safe election in November.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Fair Elections Center and pro bono counsel from the law firm WilmerHale have filed a lawsuit demanding North Carolina take the necessary steps to guarantee a fair, safe election in November, given the likelihood that the state and the country will still be experiencing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fair Elections Center joined Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the law firm Arnold & Porter in filing a federal lawsuit against Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, and other officials over the state’s lack of safe and accessible voting processes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
A complaint on behalf of civic engagement organization Poder Latinx in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, seeking to block a new state law’s arbitrary and vague procedures for investigating the citizenship status of Arizona voters. Poder Latinx works to register and engage Latinx voters in Arizona, and its efforts will be frustrated by a voter registration system that is ever-changing and complicated, and that will baselessly harass naturalized voters.
In February 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona struck down portions of two state laws requiring election officials to investigate the citizenship of Arizona voters and voter registration applicants. Most notably, this ruling prevents election officials from relying on biases and suspicions that a voter is not a U.S. citizen when making voter registration decisions. Citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, the court found that county election officials could not initiate an extra citizenship check based on any “reason to believe” a voter was not a U.S. citizen.
The decision finding the “reason to believe” provision unlawful under the Civil Rights Act is a win for a legal claim uniquely brought by civic engagement organizations Poder Latinx, Chicanos Por La Causa and Chicanos Por La Causa Action Fund.
Fair Elections Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit challenging two provisions of a Florida law known as SB 90. One provision makes it less likely that potential voter applicants will submit registrations through community groups. The other violates the Voting Rights Act, which entitles voters who require assistance in voting by reason of disability or inability to read or write to receive help from almost anyone of the voter’s choosing.
In October, 2022 Fair Elections Center joined the League of Women Voters of the United States, League chapters from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers and filed an amicus brief in the Moore v. Harper case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case concerns the so-called “independent state legislature theory” (ISLT) which, if adopted, would have far-reaching implications for the future of American democracy.
