The Continuing Threats to Voting Rights

As a new administration takes power in Washington, the work of state and local public officials who champion free and fair elections will become even more critical.

OPINION | Dec. 10, 2024 •

Hannah Fried, All Voting is Local

Wausau voting drop box — Following Wausau, Wis., voters’ protests after it was removed by the mayor, a ballot drop box was returned to outside City Hall on Sept. 30. (Rob Mentzer/Wisconsin Public Radio)

Like many voting-rights advocates, I spent much of this year gearing up to fight baseless challenges to the outcome of the election. Instead, the chorus of election deniers we heard so much from over the past four years has quieted since Donald Trump won the presidency. Over the next four years, however, those who care about protecting and advancing voting rights know that this quiet will not represent complacency from the party that will control all three branches of our federal government. The playing field for anti-voter efforts is shifting and expanding — but the playbook looks much the same.

That playbook in practice is now Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy road map for the new administration. Many of its most dangerous and sweeping proposed changes to our core voting freedoms have been playing out at the state and local level for years. So while it will be critical to do everything we can to push back on attempts to erode our democratic freedoms at the federal level, it is imperative that we double down on our fight in states and local communities.

First, we must recognize the scale at which states and localities will be emboldened to further emulate the policies in Project 2025. The document calls, for instance, to move prosecution of election-related offenses from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to its Criminal Division, opening the door to greater intimidation of voters. We saw the policing of voters this year in Florida and Texas, where officers from the states’ election integrity units showed up at voters’ homes to question their election-related activities.

Project 2025 also aims to scale back federal assistance to combat disinformation and foreign interference in our elections. The dangerous ramifications of foreign interference were felt on Election Day, when bomb threats linked to Russia temporarily shut down polling locations in several battleground states.

And Project 2025 seeks to allow federal agencies unprecedented access to state voter rolls. That’s a frightening thought after the xenophobic actions we saw this year from individual activists, as well as some state officials, to remove voters of color from the rolls.

Second, with an inherently authoritarian agenda coming out of Washington, D.C., the work of state and local public officials who champion free and fair elections will become even more critical. My organization, All Voting is Local, has released a set of common-sense state-level policies that make it easier for Americans to vote — including responsible maintenance of the voter rolls, the expansion of early and mail voting, and expanded voter education in multiple languages.

Michigan is already considering a comprehensive voting rights bill, but these efforts go beyond state legislatures. It will be essential that state and local officials charged with administering our elections hold the line on access to the polls. To do that, we need to ensure they have the funding and infrastructure to do their jobs, as well as improve safety protections for officials themselves.

Advocates must also push back on actions taken by these officials if they fail to champion a pro-voter agenda or move to politicize election administration. It's no surprise that voting-rights advocates are concerned about actions like that taken recently by North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature, which voted to wrest power over election administration from the incoming Democratic governor.

Finally, we should find inspiration from the actions of voters who have already demonstrated their prowess in advocating on behalf of their rights. Community organizations in Pennsylvania, for example, led efforts that tripled the number of languages voting materials are available in. In Nevada, Native American voters pushed the state to expand voting options and sites on tribal land. Voters also raised their voices in Wausau, Wis., restoring access to a ballot box in their community. As we call on advocates to continue this momentum, we also need to provide them with legal support they may need in the face of unfair scrutiny of their activism, as evidenced by Florida’s new law targeting voter registration groups with harsh criminal penalties.

We live in a time where conversations about voting rights lead us to expect the worst, and in doing so we risk ignoring or normalizing the less extreme but still problematic effects of attacks on our rights. It’s imperative that we not fall into that trap as we look ahead to 2025 and beyond. Voters will be heading back to the polls in several states next year, so we have no time to waste.

Hannah Fried is executive director of All Voting is Local, a nonpartisan organization that works to safeguard the rights of voters at the state and local levels.

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