The Future of Voting Rights

As the country heads into 2024, multiple ongoing court cases critically address the issue of voting rights and gerrymandering. 

Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP involves South Carolina’s 2022 congressional map and its attempt to engage in racial gerrymandering. The ACLU, NAACP LDF, and Arnold & Porter sued on behalf of the South Carolina NAACP and affected voters, contending that the South Carolina legislature singled out minority communities by cracking predominantly Black cities and neighborhoods to reduce their electoral influence. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids sorting voters based on their race without a compelling state interest, and intentional racial discrimination violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. A panel of three federal judges unanimously ruled that South Carolina’s congressional map was unconstitutional; South Carolina appealed to the Supreme Court, contending that it moved Black voters for partisan reasons. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in October. Several other ongoing court cases address racial and political gerrymandering and the constitutionality of state congressional maps, including Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Graham and Utah State Legislature v. League of Women Voters. 

Harness v. Watson, on the other hand, involves Mississippi’s 1890 felony disenfranchisement law adopted to disenfranchise Black voters. The question is whether any amendment to a law adopted for an impermissible racially discriminatory purpose, regardless of how minor the amendment and the historical context, rid the law of its racist origins for 14th Amendment equal protection purposes. The Supreme Court invalidated a similar provision in the Alabama Constitution in Hunter v. Underwood, holding that because the provision was “enacted with the intent of disenfranchising Blacks,” it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Lastly, the ACLU and 11 other civil rights organizations filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, urging it to overturn the 10th Circuit’s ruling in Fitisemanu v. United States et al. and overrule the Insular Cases’ territorial incorporation doctrine. All those born in the U.S. or its territories, except individuals born in American Samoa, a U.S. territory since 1900, are U.S. citizens. The Insular Cases were a series of Supreme Court cases in the early 20th century that held that “unincorporated” territories, such as Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines, were “foreign in a domestic sense” and different in constitutional status compared to territories such as Oklahoma and New Mexico, which Congress considered destined for statehood. This doctrine of territorial incorporation has resulted in certain fundamental rights extended to some individuals under U.S. jurisdiction but denied to others. The brief argues that the Court should reject the principle of territorial incorporation and the Insular Cases since lower courts have continuously used their rationale to discriminate against territorial residents. 

These cases, which are awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court or which the Supreme Court has refused to hear, highlight the ongoing struggles of marginalized communities, including African Americans and those born in the U.S. territories, for an equal voice in American democracy. These pending cases are significant because they demonstrate how our voting rights are not secure, especially considering various state voter suppression laws that make voting harder. We must remember that it is everyone’s responsibility to protect against threats to democracy and ensure that all people have equitable access to a political voice.

To read more: ACLU