Friend –

The Supreme Court just ruled 6-3 to uphold Arizona voter restrictions in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, a case in which the ACLU and our affiliate filed an amicus brief.

This decision makes it much harder to fight racial discrimination in voting in our country.

The case itself challenged two voting barriers under Arizona law – limitations on ballot collection and out-of-precinct voting – and whether those provisions violated Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by denying or abridging the right to vote in a manner that was racially discriminatory.

Today, SCOTUS chose to validate these discriminatory state policies instead. By doing so, the Court not only upheld barriers to the ballot for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx voters in Arizona but also weakened the Voting Rights Act by adopting a narrow view of Section 2.

Since the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Section 2 has been a critical tool in combating voter suppression laws that disproportionately harm communities of color. Today's decision severely weakens that tool and it will now be extremely difficult to challenge similarly racist voting restrictions in court at a time when states have introduced hundreds of them across the country.

The Court's ruling today makes it clear: We cannot let up for a moment in the fight to protect the vote. And urging Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is one immediate action to ensure this happens.

ACLU Supporter, the VRAA will not only begin to root out discriminatory voting barriers like those in Arizona but restore critical voting rights protections in the Voting Rights Act that were lost in 2013.

Tell your representative to pass this crucial piece of legislation – and together, we will continue the imperative work to defend equal, fair voting for all.

For our democracy,

Chris Anders
Pronouns: He, him, his
Director, Democracy Division, ACLU