The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act, is a United States federal law signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, that came into effect on January 1, 1995. The law was enacted under the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution and advances voting rights in the United States by requiring state governments to offer simplified voter registration processes for any eligible person who applies for or renews a driver's license or applies for public assistance, and requiring the United States Postal Service to mail election materials of a state as if the state is a nonprofit. The law requires states to register applicants that use a federal voter registration form, and prohibits states from removing registered voters from the voter rolls unless certain criteria are met.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is an international collection of autonomous community-based organizations that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. They, along with a number of other community unions, are affiliated under ACORN International.
Voter caging involves challenging the registration status of voters and calling into question the legality of allowing them to vote. Usually it involves sending mail directly to registered voters and compiling a list from mail returned undelivered. Undeliverable mail is seen as proof that the person no longer resides at the address on their voter registration. The resultant list is then used by election officials to purge names from the voter registration rolls or to challenge voters' eligibility to vote on the grounds that the voters no longer reside at their registered addresses.
During the 2004 United States elections, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote, whether ineligible voters were registered, whether voters were registered multiple times, and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President George W. Bush, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. Despite the existing controversies, Kerry conceded the election the following day on November 3.
The youth vote in the United States is the cohort of 18–24 year-olds as a voting demographic. Many policy areas specifically affect the youth of the United States, such as education issues and the juvenile justice system. The general trend in voter turnout for American elections has been decreasing for all age groups, but "young people's participation has taken the biggest nosedive". This low youth turnout is part of the generational trend of voting activity. Young people have the lowest turnout, though as the individual ages, turnout increases to a peak at the age of 50 and then falls again. Ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972, youth have been under represented at the polls as of 2003. In 1976, one of the first elections in which 18-year-olds were able to vote, 18–24 year-olds made up 18 percent of all eligible voters in America, but only 13 percent of the actual voters – an under-representation of one-third. In the next election in 1978, youth were under-represented by 50 percent. "Seven out of ten young people…did not vote in the 1996 presidential election… 20 percent below the general turnout." In 1998, out of the 13 percent of eligible youth voters in America, only five percent voted. During the competitive presidential race of 2000, 36 percent of youth turned out to vote and in 2004, the "banner year in the history of youth voting," 47 percent of the American youth voted. In the Democratic primaries for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the number of youth voters tripled and even quadrupled in some states compared to the 2004 elections. In 2008, Barack Obama spoke about the contributions of young people to his election campaign outside of just voter turnout.
Declare Yourself was an American campaign that aimed to encourage young people to register to vote. The campaign was founded by philanthropist, Norman Lear in 2004 and was led by former American presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. The 2004 campaign consisted of a road trip to towns across the country to educate people about the United States Declaration of Independence and voting rights. The 2006 campaign involved public service announcements that compared not voting to people silencing themselves and not standing up for their beliefs. The 2008 campaign consisted of videos posted on YouTube and MySpace to promote voting and the 2011 campaign featured a bondage-themed photo series comparing not voting to restricting yourself. In 2011, Declare Yourself merged with another campaign to form the nonprofit, Our Time.
Jehmu Greene is an American television commentator, social justice advocate, and political and media strategist. She was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Austin, Texas. The daughter of Liberian immigrants, Greene is a first generation American.
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights is a consortium of American law firms in Chicago that provides legal services in civil rights cases
Voter registration in the United States is required for voting in federal, state and local elections in the United States. The only exception is North Dakota, although cities in North Dakota may register voters for city elections. Voter registration takes place at the county level in many states and at the municipal level in several states. Most states set cutoff dates for voter registration and to update details, ranging from 2 to 4 weeks before an election; while a third of states have Election Day or "same-day" voter registration which enables eligible citizens to register or update their registration when they vote before or on election day.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Generally considered liberal, the Brennan Center advocates for a number of progressive public policy positions, including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections. The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofits.
The Voter Participation Center (VPC) is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks to increase voter registration among young people, people of color, and unmarried women, a group it calls "The New American Majority." Its sister organization, the Center for Voter Information, is a 501(c)(4) organization that conducts get-out-the-vote campaigns. VPC runs a large direct mail program, sending voter registration materials to targeted voters. It also produces research material on demographic and voting trends. Between 2004 and 2020, they registered more than 4 million voters. Some election officials and campaigns have contested the group's methods of voter registration and voter turnout.
Vote.org, formerly Long Distance Voter, is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is based in the United States. It provides online voter guides for every state, including voter registration forms, absentee ballot applications, and information on deadlines, directions, and ID and residency requirements.
Voto Latino is a 501 (c) 4 nonprofit organization, in the United States founded in 2004. The organization's primary aim is to encourage young Hispanic and Latino voters to register to vote and become more politically involved. The organization was co-founded by Rosario Dawson, and Phil Colón. The current president and CEO is María Teresa Kumar.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.
Voter suppression in the United States is various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote. Where found, such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. Before and during the American Civil War, most African-Americans had not been able to vote. After the Civil War, all African-Americans were granted voting rights, causing some Southern Democrats and former Confederate states to institute actions such as poll taxes or language tests that were ostensibly not in contradiction to the U.S. Constitution at the time, but were used to limit and suppress voting access, most notably African American communities that made up large proportions of the population in those areas, but in many regions the majority of the electorate as a whole was functionally or officially unable to register to vote or unable to cast a ballot. African Americans' access to registration and voting in the South was often difficult until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and continues to be a subject of debate. American women did not have a constitutionally protected right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, while Native Americans' right to vote was not enacted fully until 1924 with the Indian Citizenship Act. Until 1971, with the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, the minimum voting age in the United states was 21, not 18. A constitutional amendment improving voting accessibility for the elderly and handicapped was passed in 1984. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, as of March 24, 2021, more than 361 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 47 states.
The League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL) is a civic organization in the state of Florida. The organization is nonpartisan; the League's Bylaws mandate that the organization will not support any political candidate or party. League promotes political responsibility through informed and active participation of citizens in government, acts on selected governmental issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. League's members do advocate on policy issues.
Judith A. Browne Dianis is an American civil rights attorney. She is the executive director of Advancement Project, a liberal nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.
A voter registration campaign or voter registration drive is an effort by a government authority, political party or other entity to register to vote persons otherwise entitled to vote. In some countries, voter registration is automatic, and is carried out by the government, so there is no need for organized efforts to register voters. In many many jurisdictions, the functions of electoral authorities includes endeavours to get as many people to register to vote as possible. In most jurisdictions, registration is a prerequisite to a person being able to vote at an election.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is an international collection of autonomous community-based organizations that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working. The association was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado, and, at its peak in the US, had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities.
Debra Cleaver is an American nonprofit executive who founded Vote.org and VoteAmerica.
