On Monday January 27, Priorities USA added the Detroit/Downriver Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute as plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging Michigan’s voter transportation ban and absentee ballot application organizing ban. The original suits were filed in the fall of 2019. The Detroit/Downriver Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute is the second group in Michigan to join Priorities’s legal challenges. Student-led Rise, Inc. announced it would be joining as plaintiffs on January 20. 

“Voter registration is only helpful if people can actually vote, and we’re happy to work with Priorities and Rise to make sure that our get-out-the-vote efforts can continue, grow, and serve as a model for others,” said Andrea Hunter, President of the Detroit/Downriver Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. “Voting is an important way for people to express their First Amendment rights.”

About the Detroit/Downriver Chapter of A. Philip Randolph Institute
The Detroit/Downriver Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute is a nonprofit and the local chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. The A. Philip Randolph Institute was founded in 1965 by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin and is the senior constituency group of the AFL-CIO. The institute’s mission is to fight for human equality and economic justice and seek structural changes through the American democratic process. The group’s members are involved in voter registration, get-out-the-vote activities, political and community education, legislative action, and labor support activities in the Detroit and Downriver areas of Michigan.

About Rise, Inc.
Rise is a student-led nonprofit organization advocating for free public higher education, and mobilizing college student voters with more than 30,000 students and supporters nationwide. In Michigan, Rise Student Organizing fellows are mobilizing thousands of student voters ahead of the 2020 elections through campus organizing efforts state wide.