CBA Record July-August 2024

THE YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION

YLS Highlights Voter Rights and Election Protections W ith an eye towards this year’s upcoming elections, the Young Lawyers Section highlighted voter rights and election protections during Law Week through a recent webcast. Titled “Voter Rights and Election Protections,” speakers Clifford Helm and Meredith Zinanni echoed the Amer ican Bar Association’s Law Week theme of “Voices of Democ racy” by focusing on the history of voting rights and the status of current election law in Illinois and Indiana. Helm is senior counsel with the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (CLCCR) and is an adjunct professor at DePaul University. He focuses on voting rights issues in the Midwest. Zinanni is Of Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where she practices intellectual property and patent infringement litigation. She is also an active volunteer with the CLCCR. The speakers highlighted the long struggle for expanded suf frage throughout American history. For example, the speakers noted that despite the broad scope of the Fifteenth Amendment’s text, voting rights remained restricted until the latter part of the twentieth century. In 1875, the United States Supreme Court refused to apply Fifteenth Amendment rights to women in Minor v. Happersett . Despite the introduction of the women’s suffrage amendment in 1878, women did not win the right to vote until passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The 1884 deci sion Elk v. Wilkins similarly refused to extend Fifteenth Amend ment rights to Indigenous Americans. That decision remained good law until 1924, when Congress passed the Citizenship Act. Indeed, in practice, Black Americans were severely restricted from exercising their rights through various Jim Crow laws until the ratification of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment—which elim inated poll taxes—and passage of the Voting Rights Act in the mid-sixties. The presentation also focused on new restrictive laws passed by various states after the high court’s 2011 decision in Shelby County v. Holder , such as polling place closures, voter ID laws, and new early voting limitations. However, voting rights were also gradually expanded through out the remainder of the twentieth century. The voting age was lowered to 18 with the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971. The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handi capped Act passed in 1984. The speakers also focused on the history of voting rights expan sion in Chicago and Illinois more broadly, noting their long and storied history of machine politics, election-fixing, vote buying, voter suppression, and corruption. They also highlighted the landscape of local authorities, such as the Chicago Board of Elec tions and its responsibility for administering elections. Contem by J. Kopczyk

porary Illinois was characterized as a highly voter-access-friendly state, with provisions such as same day and automatic voter reg istration, an election day holiday, early voting and universal poll ing locations, polling locations in pre-trial detention centers, and permanent options to vote by mail. The speakers also highlighted the Election Protection hotline (866-OUR-VOTE), which is meant to address any question or concern an Illinois or Indiana voter may have while at the polls. The nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, the entity respon sible for the hotline, also provides assistance throughout the voting process. Whether it be voter registration, voting through an absentee ballot, voting early, or casting a vote at the polls on Election Day, the coalition is there to aid voters. The Election Protection coalition also hosts several working groups that focus on myriad topics, including legal strategies and scenario plan ning, data and technology, misinformation and disinformation, election security, language and accessibility, and jail and post release voting. Volunteers with the Election Protection coalition can expect to provide voters with information on how to vote, document issues that voters encounter while they navigate the voting pro cess, and otherwise identify and remove barriers to voting. Legal professionals have additional opportunities to volunteer at voter assistance call centers or a local field program. Nonlegal profes sionals can also participate through a nonpartisan poll monitor ing program. The program trains nonlegal volunteers to “serve as voters’ first line of defense against confusing voting rules, outdated infrastructure, rampant misinformation, and needless obstacles to the ballot box.” Readers interested in participating should visit the Election Protection coalition’s website at https:// protectthevote.net. To learn more, view “Voter Rights and Election Protections” on demand at learn.chicaobar.org.

Kopczyk is a practicing attorney with a focus on commercial and construction litigation and is the Co-Editor of the YLS Journal.

36 July/August 2024