Priorities USA Commits $15 Million to Voting Rights Efforts in 2024 Election Cycle Print
Elections, Elected Officials, Political Parties
Written by Priorities USA Press   
Monday, 22 May 2023 09:28

vote-poll-workersThe figure includes a $10 million investment in voting rights litigation and a $5 million investment in digital voter protection and education ads.


WASHINGTON, D.C. — Priorities USA announced a $15 million commitment to voting rights litigation and digital advertising focused on eliminating unnecessary barriers to voting while dispelling misinformation and disinformation regarding the process.

This commitment comes as Republicans ramp up previous efforts to limit and threaten voting rights of marginalized communities, including people of color, young people and college students, the elderly and voters with disabilities.

For nearly a decade, Priorities has fought to protect voting rights through innovative and voter-centered ad campaigns and litigation in multiple states. This commitment illustrates Priorities’ continued efforts to make intentional and proactive efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable communities. Priorities is currently supporting voting rights cases in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and New Hampshire to combat voter suppression at the state level. To date, Priorities has supported 30 voting rights cases across 11 states and invested over $50 million in voting rights initiatives since 2015. More information about Priorities’ litigation efforts can be found below.

“It is evident that extremist Republicans are still doing everything in their power to strip away voting rights and rob Americans of their constitutional right to freely participate in the electoral process. That’s why Priorities has consistently made these deep investments in voting rights programming and litigation, alongside our electoral work, to fight laws that were designed to harm marginalized communities,” said Aneesa McMillan, Deputy Executive Director of Priorities USA. “Priorities is proud to lead this necessary work and we will continue to fight for  the vulnerable communities disproportionately impacted by right-wing voter suppression.”

Wisconsin Mobile Voting Vehicle Intervention
Priorities USA is supporting a legal intervention filed by the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans to protect the use of mobile voting vehicles in Racine, Wisconsin. The intervention opposes a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the City of Racine from utilizing a mobile voting vehicle to offer early voting, which is called in-person absentee voting in Wisconsin, at various locations throughout the City, based on a legal theory that threatens the ability of localities across Wisconsin to offer convenient in-person absentee voting locations that were used by hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in 2022.

North Carolina Signature Match Intervention
Priorities is supporting a legal intervention, on behalf of the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, to defend against a lawsuit that seeks to impose signature matching requirements on absentee ballot and ballot application forms. Our case argues that signature matching is an arbitrary and error-prone process that is directly responsible for the unwarranted disenfranchisement of voters, especially considering an individual’s signature may change for a plethora of reasons, including age, illness, injury, eyesight, and other factors.

Arizona Voter Registration Challenge
Priorities is challenging a law in Arizona that criminalizes volunteers and organizations who provide voting assistance to individuals registered in another state. The law also requires county officials to cancel a voter’s registration if they are registered in another county. This practice unfairly targets young voters, college students, older voters who have moved to the state, and other transient voters who are more likely to be poor and non-white, especially since holding multiple voter registrations is quite common. In late September, the court agreed to temporarily block the felony and cancellation provisions from going into effect, providing much-needed relief for voters in the state.

New Hampshire Provisional Ballot
Priorities is challenging a law in New Hampshire that systemically disenfranchises qualified voters by creating a second-tier provisional ballot for first-time voters who register on Election Day and do not have a photo ID. Those voters must take burdensome steps to prove their identity and eligibility in order to have their ballot counted. The law will disproportionately affect younger voters, student voters and lower income voters.

Georgia Wet Signature
Priorities is additionally leading a legal challenge in response to a provision in Georgia’s widely criticized Senate Bill 202 that requires absentee ballot applications to be physically printed out and signed with “pen and ink,” unfairly limiting ballot access for many voters of color and the elderly.