How Priorities USA is Protecting the Right to Vote
As voter suppression measures including voter ID and the elimination of early voting hours are sweeping the country, Priorities USA and the Priorities USA Foundation are employing a multi-pronged strategy at both the grassroots and legislative levels and, where necessary, in court.
In recent years, Priorities USA and the Priorities USA Foundation have successfully engaged in litigation in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, and in just the past election cycle, we have won significant victories in our fights against voter suppression in Michigan, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
During the onset of the coronavirus crisis, we knew we needed to overhaul our litigation strategy and moved to protect voting during the pandemic. Priorities quickly pivoted to fighting Republican efforts to exploit the pandemic and make voting even harder by forcing their constituents to choose between their health and their right to vote.
In a case challenging Arizona’s ballot receipt deadline, Priorities secured a favorable settlement with the state of Arizona, including new funding for mobile early voting vans and an increased number of ballot drop boxes in rural, Hispanic and Latino, and tribal communities. Michigan state officials adopted key signature matching reforms outlined in Priorities USA’s motion for preliminary injunction in February of 2020. Thanks to our efforts in Pennsylvania, we stopped the Trump campaign’s effort to cut off access to ballot drop boxes, allowing voters an easy and safe way to ensure their ballot was counted. Additionally, we established a relationship between poll watching and intimidation, thus defeating an effort by the Trump campaign to use out-of-town poll watchers at voting locations in Philadelphia.
With your help, Priorities USA and the Priorities USA Foundation are leading the effort to defeat these attempts at disenfranchisement, and, when necessary, our aggressive, experienced, and winning legal team will litigate these harmful voting laws in our courts.