A few dozen miles north of New York City on the Hudson River lies the picturesque town of Mount Pleasant. The town is made up of six small villages, and its population has grown to more than 44,000 in recent years. It has also become more diverse, with 19% of its residents now identifying as Latino. But despite its changing demographics, it appears that no person of color has ever been elected to the town board, voting rights advocates say.
In addition, because of the town’s at-large voting system, Latinos have routinely been denied the ability to elect a candidate of their choice, which violates their rights — and prevents them from having a voice in their own community, a lawsuit filed by four Hispanic residents alleges.
Before 2022, the group might have been out of luck: Under federal law, it is difficult to prevail on a claim of “vote dilution” such as this one, and recent Supreme Court decisions have made it even more challenging. But today, armed with New York’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and representation from the Harvard Election Law Clinic, Latino residents of Mount Pleasant may yet have a chance to flex their electoral power — and help determine the future of their town.
The lawsuit is one of the Election Law Clinic’s major efforts to support state voting rights acts, as they seek to reinstate — and even expand on — protections once granted under the federal Voting Rights Act, which have been pared back in recent years by a string of court rulings.
“Justice Marshall acknowledged over 40 years ago that an election system that prevents politically powerless groups from electing candidates of their choice provides nothing more than the right to cast meaningless ballots. The clinic seeks to promote the right to a meaningful vote for everyone,” says Ruth Greenwood, the clinic’s director.
As part of the clinic’s work to foster a robust and inclusive democracy, Greenwood’s students work with local and national groups to research, write, and promote state voting rights acts. And, in places where the bills become law, the clinic represents clients hoping to invoke their right to vote — and have it count.
Voting rights then and now
Before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation of the 20th century, he paused to acknowledge what the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would mean to millions of people, particularly Black Americans, who had long fought — and died — to exercise their right to the ballot box. The law, Johnson promised, would be “monumental.”
“Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield,” he added.
In 2024, the battlefield analogy might be more relevant than ever, as key parts of the Voting Rights Act have been rendered ineffective by recent Supreme Court decisions, while many new challenges percolate in the nation’s district and appeals courts.
A huge blow to the cause of broad federal voting rights protections came in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, in which local government officials in Alabama sued the U.S. attorney general to prevent federal intervention in proposed changes to local voting laws. In a decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts ’79 and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia ’60, Anthony Kennedy ’61, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, the Court struck down Section 5 of the historic law — the so-called “preclearance” rule — which had required certain states and districts with a track record of racially discriminatory voting practices to obtain federal permission before making changes to their election laws or procedures.
Then, three years ago, the Court decided a case called Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, a ruling that voting rights advocates say ultimately made it more difficult to prove that a group’s right to vote has been denied or abridged under federal law. The decision was written by Alito and joined by Roberts and Thomas, as well as by the Court’s three newest members, Neil Gorsuch ’91, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Bolstering state-level voting rights
Alongside — and partly in response to — the weakening of federal rights granted by the Voting Rights Act, a parallel movement has taken shape to bolster the franchise at the state level. Beginning with California in 2001, and more recently in Washington, Oregon, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Minnesota, legislatures have passed state voting rights acts into law. Many other states — including Michigan, Maryland, and New Jersey — are considering doing so as well.
Greenwood says the wave of interest in state voting rights acts traces in part to their ability to reinstate protections from the original federal legislation, and even add to them. The possibilities for creative and customized voter protections — and the ability for local groups to drive the legislation — are central reasons for the Harvard Law clinic’s involvement.
Fostering a democracy that is truly representative of its people is the goal of Harvard’s Election Law Clinic.
“One of the things we seek to do is build power for marginalized communities, and the federal Voting Rights Act has historically been the way we do that,” Greenwood says. “But as that law has been increasingly diminished by the Supreme Court, we think this is an opportunity to continue that important work.”
Greenwood’s students work on state voting rights acts from multiple angles, always in collaboration with local advocates, she says. When groups are interested in working on a bill in their state, the clinic and its students partner to research and draft language for the bill, fortify the legislation against legal challenges, build coalitions, and support public education efforts, says Greenwood. Then, once the bill is signed, she and her students represent clients hoping to vindicate their rights under the law.
The clinic can already claim several victories. In addition to being part of a coalition that helped pass a voting rights act in Connecticut in 2023, it is also a member of the team that introduced a similar bill in New Jersey this year. It submitted an amicus brief to the Washington Supreme Court defending the state’s voting rights act — and was even cited by the court in its decision to uphold the law. Greenwood’s students have been invited to offer input, testimony, and support for bills pending before other state legislatures as well. And in February, the clinic joined Abrams Fensterman, a New York firm, to sue the town of Mount Pleasant — one of the first lawsuits filed under that state’s voting rights law.
The goal of all this, Greenwood says, is to foster a democracy that is truly representative of its people. “And I’m talking about democracy at all levels, from the library board up to the members of Congress,” she says.
Creative and customizable
In New Jersey, nearly a third of residents speak a language other than English. Regina Fairfax ’24, who worked with the clinic as a student, points to facts like this to show how voting rights acts might be tailored to protect the unique needs of voters in each state.
Federal law mandates that if 5% of voting-age citizens in a jurisdiction speak one of a limited number of languages other than English, election materials must also be offered in that language. But in a very diverse state like New Jersey, there are many groups that do not quite meet the federal threshold yet would still benefit from translated materials, says Fairfax. “That is a huge barrier to accessing the vote, and one of the major reasons for the disparities we see in voting,” she says.
Fairfax, who worked on a white paper to help residents and legislators understand the proposed bill in New Jersey, says that the law, if passed, could help remove those hurdles. “New Jersey’s voting rights act focuses on empowering individual citizens to help vindicate and defend their right to vote by creating rights of action that allow private citizens to sue for violations, by making the process a lot easier, and by making it a lot simpler for everyday individuals to understand,” she says.
Of course, no two states are the same. And so, naturally, “No two state voting rights acts are the same,” says Kunal Dixit ’24, who co-wrote the clinic’s successful brief for the case before the Washington Supreme Court. But Dixit adds that voting rights laws generally focus on three distinct areas: denial of the right to vote, vote dilution — where voters do not have an equal opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice — and additional remedies for those whose rights have been violated.
Students in the clinic help draft the bills, but Marisa Wright ’24 says that partners on the ground in each state determine priorities. “They’re the ones that know what the issues are in their state, and they understand the possible barriers for voters,” she says.
Empowering voters while avoiding litigation
In many cases, states are looking to shore up voting rights while limiting the need for litigation, says Lucas Rodriguez ’24, who worked with national partners to formulate a model voting rights act and provided testimony on the laws to legislators in two states.
“Litigation is expensive, and it takes a long time,” he says. “If you can nip the problem in the bud, it’s better for everyone.”
One way state voting rights acts can help with that, Rodriguez says, is to institute preclearance.
Federal Voting Rights Act preclearance requirements — the ones struck down in Shelby County — addressed historic electoral discrimination in minority communities and did not always reflect the diversity of modern-day America. And they did not address other kinds of inequities that contribute to or are exacerbated by disparities in electoral participation. Dixit says, “States are looking at discrimination more broadly than just the elections context, to criminal justice statistics and a municipality’s past violations of other civil rights laws, including discrimination in employment and public housing.”
Here, too, the clinic has been a source of support, says Rodriguez. “We help think through which kinds of governments should be covered by a preclearance regime, and what the standards for approval should be for changes.”
Clinic students work on state voting right acts from multiple angles, always in collaboration with local advocates.
State voting rights acts can also use other tools to incentivize the resolution of problems outside of courts, says Kelly Murphy ’24. In some states, such as California and New York, potential plaintiffs must send a notice letter to the city, town, or political subdivision they claim is violating the law before filing a lawsuit, giving the entity a fair chance to address the issue.
In Murphy’s view, this “safe harbor” provision “puts power back in the political subdivision’s hands, which is more democratic than having a judge immediately decide how to resolve the issue.”
But when a city isn’t able — or willing — to change its electoral processes or procedures, state voting rights acts can also make it easier for plaintiffs to prove that their vote has been denied or diluted.
“We have seen the ways in which it can be very difficult to litigate a lawsuit under the federal Voting Rights Act and the ways that it does not address all kinds of voting harm,” says Rodriguez, adding that state ballot access law can include process-oriented specifications for the courts, such as evidentiary guidelines on how to assess claims of racially polarized voting. Some bills even require the state to maintain databases to track demographics and voting patterns, which can help advocates evaluate the law’s efficacy, he says.
Murphy is one of several students who has worked on Serratto v. Town of Mount Pleasant, the clinic’s vote dilution lawsuit. She says that it has been exciting to strategize with the plaintiffs and co-counsel, particularly because a decision in the case could shape the outcome of future litigation under New York’s voting rights act.
“It’s been interesting to examine the possibilities under this law,” she says. “It’s uncharted waters.”
Although the suit is only in its infancy, Greenwood and her students have cause to be optimistic.
The lawsuit
Litigating in state court can be better for plaintiffs for a host of reasons, including lower costs and greater accessibility, Murphy says. But New York’s voting rights act also contains a “democracy canon,” which she says requires courts to resolve disputes over the statute’s meaning in favor of the interpretation that is more enfranchising.
“It’s a built-in mechanism to encourage judges to be more protective” of citizens’ voting rights, says Murphy.
And should the plaintiffs prevail in the case, a wider menu of options would be available to rectify the problem. Whereas the federal Voting Rights Act contains a limited number of remedies — such as prohibiting an offending practice or redrawing electoral maps — state laws can get creative there, too.
In the Mount Pleasant case, the court could require single-member districts, for example, or it could implement proportional ranked-choice voting. For other kinds of lawsuits, “there are things like adding additional voting hours or days, additional polling locations, requiring more days for voter registration, and much more,” says Murphy.
She is confident about the future of the case, but she says that no matter what happens, “our hope is that the Hispanic community can finally have their voice be heard.”
Better voting laws and better lawyers
Greenwood’s students cite different reasons for their interest in election law, but all of them say that their experiences in the clinic magnified the importance of the right to vote — and made them better lawyers, too.
“I gained hard legal skills, of course,” says Wright, “but I also gained softer skills, such as working with co-counsel, communicating with clients, and maintaining confidentiality, along with learning how the lawmaking and litigation processes work.”
It also affirmed her decision to pursue public interest work. “It showed me how I can use my work as a lawyer to promote change that aligns with my values,” says Wright, who, along with Dixit, continues to work on state voting rights acts as a fellow at the Campaign Legal Center, a voter advocacy nonprofit.
To Fairfax, the rapid pace of the work — there is always an election coming up — coupled with its collaborative nature helped her hone her research, writing, and advocacy skills. “It was kind of amazing to see just how much I learned in such a short period of time,” she says.
But the biggest reward, the students agree, has been to see their efforts turn into real legislation with a real impact on voters.
“From a pure policy perspective, I think these laws help lower disparities in voter turnout, and they help create more diverse and representative local governments,” says Rodriguez. “And ultimately, in doing so, they make local governments more responsive to people’s needs.”
In an ideal world, says Wright, “everyone would have strong voting rights protections.” Until then, the federal Voting Rights Act may be embattled, but the fight for access to the ballot box continues — state by state, person by person — thanks in part to the Harvard Election Law Clinic.