Voting-rights legislation clears Assembly committee

A state Assembly committee cleared a voting rights act on Thursday that proponents say will fill a dangerous gap left by the weakening of the federal Voting Rights Act. 

The legislation, named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, would expand translation and interpretation services for voters, direct officials to construe laws in favor of allowing voters to cast ballots, and other provisions. The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton), said the legislation will protect voters from rulings that have chipped away at voter protections in recent years.

“This is a bill that establishes fierce statewide protections to ensure every eligible voter in New Jersey can participate fully and fairly in elections,” Reynolds-Jackson said. “Our voting rights are under attack across America, especially for voters of marginalized communities of color.”

Reynolds-Jackson and supporters said a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions warrants the implementation of a New Jersey Voting Rights Act. Eight other states, including New York and Connecticut, have passed similar legislation.

The bill cleared the committee on party lines. On Wednesday, Reynolds-Jackson said the bill will go before the Assembly on Monday. The legislation cleared a vote in the Assembly’s State and Local Government Committee a month ago.

“It has strong protections against voter intimidation, deception, and obstruction at the polls,” Reynolds-Jackson said. “It also has a publicly accessible database to be run by the Secretary of State on election data and demographic information that would empower officials and communities everywhere to ensure accessibility to elections.”

One provision would require some local and county governments to preclear any changes to voting law with a newly created, independent Division of Voting Rights. Municipalities and counties with a history of violating voting-rights laws would, under the bill, be required to obtain prior approval from the Division of Voting Rights or a court before implementing changes to election procedures.

The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 featured a similar practice, but the Supreme Court effectively terminated preclearance in a 2013 case.

“Preclearance prevents racial discrimination before it occurs, while saving local jurisdictions money by avoiding costly litigation,” Imani Brooks, a policy counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, said while testifying in favor of the bill. “Modeled after Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act … the John Lewis Act contains the preclearance framework to determine which local governments, based on recent history of race-based discrimination, come under a requirement to have their election policies and procedures preapproved in a streamlined, timely fashion before they go into effect.

Nuzhat Chowdhury from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice is leading a coalition of advocacy groups pushing the legislation. In a panel earlier this month, she said election-related obstacles disproportionately affect voters of color and that the bill helps address such snafus.

“These obstacles come in forms such as delayed openings of polling locations, long lines at polling locations, lack of signs and accessibility for voters with disabilities or medical conditions, and lack of language accessibility for those voters who maybe don’t speak or read English very well,” she said. “We see voter registration problems. We see a lack of access to courts for disenfranchised voters. And these things really accumulate, right?”

Proponents say state legislation is needed because of court rulings striking down sections of the federal Voting Rights Act. They point to Louisiana v. Callais — a case currently before the Supreme Court of the United States — as another potential example. In that case, the Supreme Court is determining whether maps drawn to adhere to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires majority-minority congressional districts in certain cases, constitute illegal racial gerrymandering.

A decision in that case could come any day.

But Assemblywoman Victoria Flynn (R-Holmdel) said that with record turnout in recent New Jersey elections, she doesn’t believe the legislation is needed. The assemblywoman said New Jersey’s lawmakers have vastly expanded access to the voting booth in recent years, and instead suggested voter ID laws as a legislative priority preferred by most residents.

“I think New Jersey has been doing a pretty damn good job at making sure we have access to the ability to [vote], and I would use this moment as a public service moment to say to the residents out there who aren’t voting, you really don’t have an excuse,” Flynn said in the hearing. “Get out there and participate in this democracy. I don’t think it has anything to do with the state of New Jersey, or county officials, or local officials preventing that from happening.”

In response, proponents said the legislation lets residents find recourse for violations of their voting rights. They say the federal threshold for violations has become too high, and a state law would give voters a better chance.

Hera Mir, a policy analyst at AAPI New Jersey, testified in favor of the bill but asked for an amendment.

“The county boards of elections would have gotten their own funding to hire their own legal representation separately, and the voters would have had representation through the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights,” Mir told the New Jersey Globe. “Now this bill, unfortunately, isn’t clear on how voters will be represented.”

Mir expressed concerns that the new Division of Voting Rights, placed in the Department of the Treasury, could confuse voters more.

Under the bill, the Attorney General’s Office will continue to represent county boards of elections, which sometimes means pitting those officials against residents looking for the opportunity to vote. Mir gave one example from 2024, when a technical error switched a voter’s party affiliation without their knowledge, leading to their disenfranchisement in that election. (The New Jersey Globe has reported similar instances.)

“They were enthusiastic to go vote for this candidate, but they were not able to because of the incorrect affiliation, and they weren’t able to get representation from the state, even though we have a Voter Protection Unit,” Mir said. “The Attorney General’s Office actually came out for the county board of elections instead.”