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Today, the Legal Defense Fund and 71 additional organizations sent a letter urging Governor Kathy Hochul, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Speaker Carl Heastie to prioritize, pass, and sign into law the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York (NYVRA). This landmark legislation would root out discrimination against voters of color in New York and immediately make the Empire State a national leader on protecting the right to vote.

The NYVRA’s critical protections include:

  • Launching a “preclearance” program that requires local governments with records of discrimination to prove that proposed voting changes will not harm voters of color before they can go into effect.
  • Providing new legal tools to fight discriminatory voting provisions in court.
  • Expanding language assistance for voters with limited English proficiency.
  • Creating strong protections against voter intimidation, deception, or obstruction.
  • Instructing state judges to interpret election laws in a pro-voter way whenever possible, so that close questions of legal interpretation are resolved in favor of the rights of qualified voters.
  • Establishing, through companion legislation, a central hub for election data and demographic information that will empower officials and community members to ensure accessible elections

Read the full letter here.

Learn more about the NYVRA here.

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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.

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