Challenging Unsafe and Unequal Voting Practices

Challenging Unsafe and Unequal Election Practices in Texas: Mi Familia Vota v. Abbott I

Challenging Premature Voting Registration Deadline in Arizona: Mi Familia Vota v. Hobbs

III

Guide to Safe Voting During COVID-19 Pandemic

Challenging Unsafe and Unequal Election Practices in Texas: Mi Familia Vota v. Abbott I

Free Speech For People filed a lawsuit in federal court in Texas on behalf of Mi Familia Vota, the Texas NAACP, and individual Texas voters challenging Texas’s in-person election practices, which are unsafe, high risk, and unequal during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit alleges that the state’s reliance on repeat-touch voting machines, its insufficient number of polling places, its limited and inaccessible early voting locations, and its voter identification requirements will result in unsafe voting conditions and increased risk of coronavirus transmission. The health risks and adverse impact of these policies will place an undue burden on the right to vote and be borne disproportionately by voters of color, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

Challenging Premature Voting Registration Deadline in Arizona: Mi Familia Vota v. Hobbs

Free Speech For People represents Mi Familia Vota, the Arizona Coalition for Change, and an individual voter registration organizer, in this challenge in federal district court in Arizona, alleging First and Fourteenth Amendment violations as applied. From March to August 2020, organizations that register citizens to vote in Arizona were effectively prevented from registering due to a stay-at-home order and other restrictions on day-to-day interactions in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. We seek a court order extending the October 5 voter registration cutoff. On October 5, the court granted our request for a preliminary injunction and extended the deadline to October 23, 2020. On October 13, 2020, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling limiting to October 15, 2020 the amount of additional time for voters in Arizona to register to vote for the November 2020 election.

Guide to Safe Voting During COVID-19 Pandemic

On April 7, 2020, Free Speech For People published a report entitled: “Safe Voting During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in collaboration with Dr. Joia Mukherjee, a physician, clinical researcher, and educator trained in Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and public health at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, and Mark Ritchie, an election management expert, advisor to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Minnesota’s Secretary of State from 2007-15. The report identifies voting machines themselves as possible vectors of infection in the novel coronavirus pandemic, and examines the consequences and possible remedies. While some states have already begun postponing primary elections, the guide outlines four legal and policy changes every state should make to ensure a safe, accessible, and trustworthy election.

CHALLENGING PREMATURE VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE IN SOUTH CAROLINA: SOUTH CAROLINA PROGRESSIVE NETWORK EDUCATION FUND V. ANDINO

Free Speech For People represented the South Carolina Progressive Network Education Fund, in this challenge in federal district court in South Carolina, alleging First and Fourteenth Amendment violations as applied. From March to August 2020, organizations that register citizens to vote in South Carolina were effectively prevented from registering due to a state of emergency and other restrictions on day-to-day interactions in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. We sought a court order extending the October 4 voter registration cutoff to at least October 19, 2020. Free Speech For People was pleased to partner with the law firms of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP and Burnette Shutt McDaniel P.A. in this litigation.

FIGHTING PENNSYLVANIA’S UNSAFE AND UNEQUAL VOTING PRACTICES: NAACP PENNSYLVANIA STATE CONFERENCE V. BOOCKVAR

Free Speech For People and the law firm Dechert LLP filed a lawsuit in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on behalf of the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP challenging a broad range of Pennsylvania election practices as unsafe and unequal during the COVID-19 pandemic. The complaint alleged that the state’s insufficient number of polling places, use in many counties of repeat-touch voting machines, requirement that voting in person must take place within a single day, and limited access to vote-by-mail will result in unsafe voting conditions and abridgment of the right to vote, with particular adverse impacts for voters of color, in violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution’s guarantees of free and fair elections and equal protection of the law.