Defending Democracy: The ACLU's Election Strategy

Oct 04, 2024

By:

In November, voters will choose whether to preserve freedom and democracy or set the country on a perilous path to authoritarianism. With so much at stake in this election, the ACLU has launched its most comprehensive voting rights protection and voter education programs in its history.

The ACLU has raised and committed more than $25 million to advance ballot measures that expand and protect voting and abortion rights, and to spotlight candidates’ stances on critical civil rights and civil liberties issues through the ACLU Voter Education Fund, a new super PAC. The project includes a redistricting reform measure in Ohio, state supreme court and legislative races, and a pivotal U.S. Senate contest in Wisconsin.

Both the ACLU and the ACLU Voter Education Fund are nonpartisan and do not support or oppose candidates for elected office.

“We stand at a precipice,” said ACLU Chief Political and Advocacy Officer Deirdre Schifeling. “This election will not be merely a choice between candidates, but a test of our fundamental civil liberties and civil rights.”

PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Since the 2020 election, anti-democratic forces have attacked voting rights in state legislatures and court houses, including attempts to restrict mail-in and absentee voting, purge voter rolls, pass voter ID laws, and end same-day registration.

By mobilizing our resources, the ACLU has challenged these voter suppression laws and sought to preserve equal access to the ballot across the country with a focus on six battleground states—Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

We’ve already notched significant wins. Due to an ACLU legal challenge to a sweeping Georgia law, volunteers will be allowed to hand out food and water to voters waiting in line this November and people voting by mail won’t be required to include their birthdate on the ballot-return envelope. The ACLU of Nevada successfully sued to force one county to comply with a state law requiring jails to establish procedures to allow eligible incarcerated voters to register to vote and cast a ballot. Partnering with community groups, the ACLU of Wisconsin secured funding for three new early voting locations in Milwaukee. And in Florida, the ACLU blocked a law barring noncitizens from registering people to vote.

That work will continue, but the ACLU’s efforts to safeguard the integrity of the election won’t end when the polls close. As we learned during the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest, legal advocates must ensure that partisan interference does not taint the process of counting the ballots or certifying the election. We saw a preview of what may come earlier this year when county commissioners in Nevada refused to certify the June primary results. On Election Day and beyond, ACLU staff attorneys are prepared to respond quickly, including filing litigation when appropriate, should irregularities arise.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ON THE BALLOT

In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 14 states have banned abortion outright and eight outlaw abortion after a set period ranging from six to 18 weeks. In addition to challenging attacks on reproductive freedom through litigation in states including Georgia, Indiana, and Iowa, the ACLU has pursued a strategy of bypassing state legislatures and appealing directly to voters, who overwhelmingly support abortion rights, at the ballot box. In November, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota will decide whether to follow the example Ohioans set in 2023 by enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. The ACLU has worked on many of these state campaigns.

CALIFORNIA VOTING RIGHTS

Over the past decade, the ACLU of Northern California has worked to expand the right to vote in California, resulting in millions of new and updated voter registrations through the Department of Motor Vehicle's automated voter registration system.

Due to the successful campaign ACLU NorCal and our community partners led in 2020 to restore voting rights to Californians on parole, most of whom are Black and Brown, this year’s electorate will also include thousands of people who were excluded from prior presidential elections. This summer, we distributed thousands of educational Let Me Vote posters and postcards to spread the word that people with criminal convictions are eligible to vote. We shared the materials, which are available in six languages, with the county jails, election departments, probation officers, public defenders’ offices, and Department of Adult Parole offices across the state. In addition to deciding races for federal, state and local office, California voters have an opportunity to protect marriage equality, end forced prison labor, and reject mass incarceration.

PREPARING FOR A HARRIS OR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The ACLU has produced a series of detailed policy memos covering Vice President Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s positions on our priority issues including abortion, criminal justice, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, and voting rights. The ACLU also developed a roadmap for how the national organization and state affiliates will protect and expand civil rights and civil liberties under either administration.

An overview of select issues follows based on an extensive review of their records and campaign statements. The full memos are available at www.aclu.org.

Trump has claimed credit for the U. S. Supreme Court’s disastrous Roe decision and during the campaign he has not been entirely forthcoming regarding his position on abortion and reproductive healthcare–although he has pledged to leave abortion policy up to the states, during the September presidential debate he refused to say whether he would veto a national ban. Under Trump, the ACLU will fight any attempt to restrict access to mifepristone, a medication used in most abortions in the U.S., or to use the Comstock Act, a nineteenth century anti-obscenity law, to ban abortion nationwide, a tactic that is included in Project 2025.

Harris strongly supports reproductive healthcare and has promised to sign a bill restoring abortion rights. This is an important first step, but the ACLU will press Harris to do more including ending the Hyde Amendment, which restricts Medicaid coverage for abortion, pushing Congress to repeal the Comstock Act, ensuring hospitals provide necessary abortion care as required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, and investing in Title X, the federally funded family planning program.

The ACLU will pursue these policy goals, while protecting access to contraception and supporting ballot measures to add abortion rights to state constitutions.

Trump’s platform calls for punitive policies that would drive mass incarceration, increase death sentences, and protect abusive police. The ACLU will challenge any plan to expedite executions or return thousands of people released on home confinement during the pandemic to federal prison.

During her Senate tenure, Harris introduced a bill that would have decriminalized marijuana and co-wrote a major police reform bill. The ACLU also will press Harris to halt federal executions and abolish the death penalty.

Under either administration, much of our criminal justice agenda will focus on Congress. The ACLU will press lawmakers to address systemic racism in the criminal legal system by passing legislation that eliminates sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, restricts solitary confinement in federal penal institutions, provides civilian teams to respond to people experiencing mental health crises, prevents police departments from acquiring military equipment and ensures police accountability.

At the state and local level, we will push for reforms that reduce incarceration and decrease interactions between police and the public, such as ending racially biased pretext traffic stops.

Trump’s campaign makes clear he would sanction unconstitutional discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community in education, employment, healthcare, and housing. In the event of a second Trump administration pursuing such policies, the ACLU will go to court to overturn federal policies that discriminate based on gender identity or sexual orientation and continue challenging state bans on gender-affirming healthcare. We will also lobby Congress to thwart the Trump administration’s attempts to codify anti- LGBTQ+ discrimination and work with state legislators to pass protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The Biden-Harris administration rescinded discriminatory federal policies from the Trump era and sued to stop a barrage of anti-trans laws and other attacks on LGBTQ+ rights at the state level. We will press Harris to further expand federal protections for LGBTQ+ people and work with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue litigation to shield trans individuals from biased state laws.

We will also advocate for passage of the federal Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

Trump has spent the past four years lying about the outcome of the 2020 election and sowing doubt about the upcoming one. Based on his past actions and campaign statements, there is every reason to believe a second Trump administration will undermine the right to vote, subvert efforts to expand voter registration, and try again to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census. As we did during his first term, the ACLU will sue to block Trump from manipulating the census count and ask the courts to intervene if he tries to use federal law enforcement to intimidate voters or elections workers.

The ACLU will hold Harris accountable for keeping her campaign promise to support federal voting rights legislation that would expand ballot access, protect marginalized voters, and deter racial and partisan gerrymandering.

We’ll push Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and Freedom to Vote Act, and ACLU affiliates will encourage state legislators and local officials to adopt policies protecting voting rights. We’re poised to fight any new voter suppression laws or policies introduced at the state or local level and will push the DOJ to enforce federal statutes protecting the right to vote. In the states, the ACLU also will continue advocating for same-day registration, mail-in and early voting and other policies that make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote.

As detailed in our memo, Trump has promised to detain and deport millions of people and restrict legal immigration. The ACLU is prepared to use every tool at our disposal—including litigation, lobbying, and public pressure—to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out Trump’s xenophobic plans. We’ll also protect the right to asylum and birthright citizenship.

The ACLU will press Harris to repair our broken immigration system by taking executive action to establish a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented residents who have lived, worked, and raised families here; end the inhumane practice of detaining and deporting immigrants; and restore access to asylum, which the Biden-Harris administration restricted in June, prompting the ACLU and other immigrants’ rights groups to file a lawsuit.

In addition to advocating for restoring balance to U.S. immigration policy, the ACLU will oppose state laws that subject immigrants to racial profiling, harassment, deportation or arrest.

Defending Democracy: The ACLU's Election Strategy

Abortion Access

Criminal Legal System

LGBTQ+ Rights

Voting Rights

Immigration

Become a Member