Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) officially released its Democracy Defended report, which provides lessons learned from monitoring the 2022 election and a blueprint for the upcoming 2024 election, with a particular focus on the South. The report documents the barriers and aggressive anti-voting tactics faced by Black voters in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, and provides practical resources and recommendations to ensure that all eligible voters are able to cast their ballot as part of our multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy.
The report is based on extensive work done by LDF’s Prepared to Vote (PTV) and Voting Rights Defender (VRD) projects. Drawing on actual experiences, firsthand observations, and reports provided to the PTV/VRD staff, the report proposes tangible solutions for policy makers, election administrators, and community leaders to ensure fair access to the vote across the nation.
“Nearly 60 years after Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act (VRA), our on-the groundwork in 2022 demonstrates that Black voters still face unequal barriers to the ballot. The upcoming 2024 election is one of the most important in our nation’s history and will determine the strength and trajectory of our multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy. It is, therefore, imperative that we learn from past elections to prevent failures at the federal, state, and local levels, which have deprived Black voters from exercising one of their most important constitutional rights—the right to vote,” explained LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson. “Democracy Defended demonstrates how new and more nuanced, anti-democratic tactics and policies have impacted the electoral process and points the way for local elections officials to run fair, accessible elections in 2024. But to truly protect and strengthen our democracy, Congress must act to adequately fund our elections infrastructure and restore and strengthen the VRA to build the inclusive, multiracial democracy the U.S. can and must become.”
Common issues identified and observed in the 2022 election include:
The Democracy Defended report presents five key recommendations for the 2024 election season to expand voter participation and ensure election integrity:
Read and download LDF’s Democracy Defended report here.
To learn more about LDF’s voting rights and voter protection work click 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. Follow LDF on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
