In August 2024, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 35, which requires state and local election officials to remove individuals from the state voter registration list if Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records do not indicate US citizenship. However, as the complaint explains, Virginia drivers’ licenses are available to non-citizens and can remain valid for up to eight years, meaning people who obtained driver’s licenses as non-citizens, subsequently became US citizens, and lawfully registered to vote are being unlawfully purged from the voter rolls based on outdated DMV information.
The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia, represented by Advancement Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Campaign Legal Center, and the Protect Democracy Project, filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the state’s policy of illegally and systematically removing voters from the rolls only one month before the upcoming election.
The lawsuit alleges that these systematic purges of Virginia’s voter rolls violate the National Voter Registration Act and risk improper removal of eligible voters, particularly those who are naturalized US citizens.
The Executive Order requires the Department of Elections (ELECT) to send only one notice to individuals warning they could be removed from the rolls, and there is no requirement that ELECT or local officials confirm the accuracy of the DMV information the notice relies upon. Individual voters have less than 14 days to respond to the notice in order to avoid removal — a burden that falls disproportionately on naturalized US citizens.
To prevent states from disenfranchising eligible voters, the National Voter Registration Act prohibits the conduct of systematic voter list maintenance “within 90 days preceding an election for federal office.” The removal of ineligible voters is permitted but must be based on individualized information or an investigation.
The policy challenged in this lawsuit appears to be motivated by false and bad-faith claims about immigrants voting in order to confuse voters about the results of the November election. Only eligible Americans vote and every state, including Virginia, has legal checks and balances to ensure only citizens vote in our elections.
In May of 2021, Florida passed SB 90 into law. The bill restricts access to the ballot by limiting access to drop boxes. The legislation also restricts the ability of civic engagement groups to assist with the collection and return of absentee ballots.
Florida Rising Together, Hispanic Federation, Faith in Florida, Equal Ground, UnidosUS, and Poder Latinx, represented by Advancement Project, Demos, LatinoJustice, and Arnold & Porter, filed suit asserting violations of the Voting Rights Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
We challenged SB 90’s provisions that:
After a lengthy trial, which included two weeks’ worth of testimony from 42 witnesses, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued a decision in 2022 determining that the plaintiffs had proved that several of the provisions within SB 90 were meant to discriminate against Black voters and disparately impacted Black voters. This violated both the federal Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The district court’s 2022 order prohibited Florida officials from enforcing all of those provisions. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed several aspects of the district court’s order.
While much of SB 90 remains in effect, the plaintiffs achieved two important victories in this case:
This disclaimer made it harder for third party voter registration organizations to help people register to vote. This is especially important when you consider that 10% of Black and Latine voters were registered by third party voter registration organizations, compared to only 2% of white voters.
This means that line warming activities are allowed so long as the person engaging in the line warming activities does not “influence” a voter by requesting or seeking to obtain something from a voter.
Advancement Project and our Florida partner organizations continue to fight to protect the votes of Black, Brown, poor, disabled, and other Floridians.
In 2020, nearly five million Georgians cast a ballot in the November elections. On the heels of this historic turnout, Georgia legislature enacted Senate Bill 202 (SB 202), which creates significant barriers for Black, Latine and other voters of color to cast a ballot in Georgia.
Among other things, this bill:
In 2021, a number of organizations, including the Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, the Justice Initiative, Metropolitan Atlanta Baptist Ministers Union, First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, all represented by Advancement Project, filed a lawsuit challenging SB 202.
We are arguing that:
This case has been consolidated with lawsuits brought by five other plaintiffs groups, one of which is the U.S. Department of Justice.
Advancement Project continues to litigate the case towards trial with our co-Plaintiffs.
On August 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia prohibited enforcement of the line relief ban in the “Supplemental Zone,” which is defined as extending within 25 feet of any voter standing in line beyond the 150-foot Buffer Zone established around polling locations.
The judge also prohibited Georgia election officials from rejecting a voter’s absentee ballot if the voter does not write their proper date of birth on their absentee ballot envelope.
The case remains ongoing as the district court considers the State’s motion for summary judgment.