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This lawsuit challenges HB 1569, a new law that will make New Hampshire the only state to require every person to produce documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote for both state and federal elections. It also challenges HB 1569’s elimination a preexisting protection for voters—namely, an affidavit option that allowed voters who faced surprise challenges to their eligibility at the polls to swear to their qualifications and cast a ballot. Accordingly, HB 1569 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution by placing substantial burdens on New Hampshirites at all stages of the voting process, and will arbitrarily disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands of qualified voters.

All voters with disabilities have the right to receive assistance voting from a person of their choice. South Carolina prohibits some voters with disabilities from receiving assistance and limits who voters can rely on for assistance. Voters with disabilities and the NAACP South Carolina State Conference sued to challenge those laws under Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act and protect disabled voters’ right to assistance.

Representing the League of Women Voters of California, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, ACLU of Northern California, and ACLU of Southern California have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit over the federal government’s demand that California turn over its entire voter registration rolls, including with voters’ sensitive personal data such as drivers’ license numbers and partial social security numbers.

The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, is opposing a request to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission from the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) for a new rulemaking to consider changing the federal voter registration form to add a requirement for documentary proof of citizenship.   The federal voter registration form was created by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and under federal law almost all states in the country have to accept it as a form of mail voter registration. As intended by the NVRA, the form is a one page, streamlined application that an individual can complete and mail-in without providing any additional documentation. If the rules about the federal form are changed so that additional documentation is required, it is likely that many states would also change their own state voter registration forms to require documentary proof of citizenship.   This change would potentially disenfranchise millions of eligible U.S. citizens.