How Can I Protect My Right to Vote?

Use these links to jump to different sections:

• Stay Alert to Legal Efforts to Suppress Your Right to Vote
• Five Practical Steps to Ensure Your Access to the Ballot
• If You’re Registered to Vote But Turned Away on Election Day, Don’t Leave—Ask for a Provisional Ballot
• What To Do If You See Voter Intimidation
• Take Comfort that Voter Fraud Is Exceedingly Rare in the United States and Easily Detected
• Glimmers of Hope for Democracy: Restoring the Voting Rights Act
• Find Experienced Legal Help

In her early days as a volunteer poll watcher in Texas, Caitlyn Silhan witnessed a number of voters being turned away because, even though they had updated their registration by mail or in person at the same time as their driver’s licenses, poll workers could find no record of it. Silhan, an attorney at Waters Kraus & Paul in Dallas, went on to successfully sue the state for noncompliance with federal law in 2016 and 2020.

“So, now, if a Texan goes to update their driver’s license online, they can update their voter registration as well,” she says.

Casting a ballot shouldn’t be confusing, yet some still encounter it. “The onus should not be on the voter, assuming they’re properly qualified and seek to properly register to vote,” Silhan adds. “It’s not their fault.”

Since the birth of the nation, Americans have fought fiercely for the right to vote. Constitutional amendments—the 15th allowed Black men to vote, the 19th granted the same right to women—were followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (a signature of the Civil Rights Movement) and, later, amendments to protect minority citizens and people with disabilities.

“Voting is the right from which all other rights derive because voting gets you those elected officials that pass laws on every other right and appoint judges who rule on every other right. When you don’t vote, then somebody else makes the choice for you, and you may not like that choice,” says Richard Bell, a New York personal injury and civil rights attorney and author of “Voting: The Ultimate Act of Resistance.”

Stay Alert to Legal Efforts to Suppress Your Right to Vote

Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has limited the reach of the Voting Rights Act by giving states more power to create their own laws and, according to attorneys who help clients with voting issues, making it harder for people to cast their ballots.

Some local authorities have closed polls, purged voter rolls, trimmed early voting, complicated ID requirements, and placed restrictions on mail-ins. In 2021, when Georgia lawmakers signed a bill making it illegal to hand out food or water to people standing in line to vote, the new law was interpreted by many as an attempt to curb voting by people of color, who often wait the longest at polls.

Voter suppression comes in other forms, too, from gerrymandering—manipulating the boundaries of a constituency to create undue advantage—to outright intimidation, such as threatening or interrogating voters on election day.

“I’ve heard stories about certain communities having the polling places surrounded by large dogs to keep people from walking up to the polling places,” says Julie Kane, a trial lawyer at Colson Hicks Eidson in Coral Gables, Florida, and co-founder of the American Association for Justice’s Voter Protection Action Committee, which recruits lawyers, paralegals, and law students to work at or monitor polls and serve as call center volunteers.

Chris Jackson, an appellate attorney at Holland & Hart in Denver, is seeing more gerrymandering due to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to stay out of the state-voter debate. “States have been a little bit more aggressive about drawing districts in a way that they think protects their political parties or their interests,” he says.

Media coverage of voting woes is not overblown, says Silhan, who co-leads her firm’s pro bono voting rights cases. And some suppression tactics still sneak under the radar. In Texas, she points out, high schools are supposed to register young voters, but aren’t. “I think that’s a shame. Whether it’s on purpose or not, I think that is contributing to low voter turnout.”

Bell, who offers the video series Voting for Beginners, is a bit more forthright. “We’re in the five-alarm fire stage on voting rights, and we have been for a while.”

Five Practical Steps to Ensure Your Access to the Ballot

Given the roadblocks, both deliberate and accidental, what can you do to protect your own right to vote?

1. Make Sure Your Voter Registration Is Active and Accurate

First, understand that the rules vary from state to state, so the voter registration process where you used to live may be different from where you reside now. Make sure your registration is active and accurate by contacting your local elections office or checking your voting status online. If your information isn’t up to date, take steps to correct it.

“Do everything early,” Bell advises. “The only goal is to have your vote counted, and if you wait, you’re putting yourself in a worse position.”

Consult an early voting map for details and deadlines in your state. You can also call your county’s election office to see if countywide voting is available or if you can only go to your assigned precinct.

2. Vote Early or By Mail Where Possible to Prevent Mistakes

Jackson recommends voting early or, where possible, by mail. “That gives you more time so that if something goes wrong, it’s not the very last day, and it can be fixed.”

A mistake, even a seemingly small one, can impede your ability to vote. “Sometimes, despite all of the efforts made to help students know where and how to vote, they try to vote at school, and they can’t because they’re registered at their mom and dad’s house,” Kane says.

3. Determine Which State You Can Vote In and Keep Track of Your Absentee Ballot

Residency issues can affect older voters, too. “If you’re a snowbird and you live in Massachusetts, for example, but you winter in Florida, you ought to determine which state you can vote in,” says Christopher Kenney, a civil litigator at Kenney & Sams in Boston. “That’s a mixed question of law and facts.”

If you’re ill, out of town at election time, or a college student not planning to stay in that state after graduation, you may be able to submit an absentee ballot if you request it well ahead of time. Keep in mind that it’s only good for one election unless your state maintains a permanent absentee ballot list. Election officials are also more likely to challenge absentee ballots, as they did in 2018 when Georgia faced two lawsuits over signatures that allegedly didn’t match those on file.

Voting this way if you’re in the military or overseas can be especially difficult, simply because the ballot has to travel internationally and back. “Even with my own vote by mail,” says Kane, “I always double-check with the Miami elections department online to make sure my ballot has been received and counted because I have the option, if it hasn’t, to go vote a real ballot, in person, on election day.”

4. Figure Out the Logistics for In-Person Voting Ahead of Time

If you’re voting in person, work out the logistics beforehand. What must you take to the polling place, such as identification? Do you need help getting there? “There are usually nonprofit organizations within most jurisdictions that can arrange [transportation for you] ahead of time,” says Ashley Crisafulli, a litigator at Stinson LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, and a member of the nonpartisan Missouri-Kansas election protection team. She often assists voters with questions ranging from whether someone at the polling place can hand them a flier about a particular candidate to whether their registration updates are showing up in the system.

Verify that your polling site hasn’t changed. “You don’t want to head to the local elementary school, and it turns out that your polling place is now actually the high school across town,” says Jackson.

Official local election websites can streamline the process and save time on election day. “In places like where I reside in Dallas County, they have maps that update [the length of lines] in real-time,” Silhan says. “That is really helpful for people who are taking time off from work or their other obligations to cast a ballot.” Get in line before the polls close; otherwise, you may legitimately lose your chance to vote.

People with disabilities, the elderly, and those with language barriers are generally entitled to on-site assistance as long as the helper is not trying to influence their vote. In Missouri, Crisafulli says, curbside voting is available for individuals who feel they can’t make it into the polling place. “We’ve actually helped many people figure out how to vote the day of election when they are in the hospital or they have some kind of emergency, but they want to exercise their right to vote,” she adds.

5. If You Have a Felony Conviction, Check Your State’s Rules for Restoring Voting Rights

Individuals who’ve been convicted of felonies may have trouble getting their voting rights back, depending on where they live.

Kane notes that the system is especially confusing in Florida, where the government has not made it easy for released prisoners, who should be able to restore their voting rights if they pay restitution for their crimes, to find out what and to whom they owe.

On the flip side, as Kenney points out, the law is much easier to navigate in Massachusetts, where felons lose their right to vote only while they’re incarcerated and automatically regain it once they’ve done their time.

If You’re Registered to Vote But Turned Away on Election Day, Don’t Leave—Ask for a Provisional Ballot

No matter how well you prepare, it’s still possible to run into a problem when you show up to vote. But you do have recourse.

“I’ve had clients where [poll workers] can’t find their name because there’s some kind of administrative error,” Bell says, noting a situation in Florida involving a number of voters who were turned away. “The polling place would tell them, ‘You don’t live here anymore. You’ve got to go back up to Jacksonville,’ and this is in South Florida. That is not feasible to be done on election day, and we had to get the director of the board of elections for the entire county involved to admonish the polling places. And they finally got to vote.”

If you’re certain you’re registered but are turned away for any reason—something as benign as a misspelling of your name on the voter registration roll or an incorrect listing of your political party in a primary could trip you up—“Do not leave,” Kane says. Be polite but firm, and ask for a provisional ballot, which is assured by federal law. After the polls close, your registration status will be verified, and your vote counted like any other. If you have any questions or are still denied the opportunity to vote, call the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline.

What To Do If You See Voter Intimidation

Outright intimidation, such as using harassing language or peering over your shoulder while you vote, is considered a felony in some states and should be reported to a nonpartisan poll watcher, legal volunteer, or even the local police. “In recent elections, we’ve seen emotions running hotter and hotter,” says Kane.

If you see someone else being bullied, Bell says, “You have a duty and responsibility to make sure they can get the proper help. We’re all citizens in it together. It’s not just about you.”

Since election interference comes in many forms, it’s worth noting that employers shouldn’t pressure workers to vote a certain way, even if it’s legal in that state. “It’s just not worth it,” Jackson says. “If you’re the employee, you should feel comfortable that your vote is your own.”

Take Comfort that Voter Fraud Is Exceedingly Rare in the United States and Easily Detected

Although it’s become a political talking point, voter fraud is “exceedingly rare,” Silhan says. “There has been a lot of noise around the issue, but I think it is safe to say that it is essentially a non-issue.”

Bell points to studies by The Heritage Foundation, MIT, and Brennan Center for Justice. Using Heritage Foundation’s online database of voter fraud, The Hill concluded in 2020 that “across the 50 states, there has been an average of three cases [of fraud using mailed ballots] per state over the 20-year span. That is just one case per state every six or seven years. We are talking about an occurrence that translates to about 0.00006% of total votes cast.” According to Brennan Center data, incident rates of voter fraud are between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.

“Across the board, these studies have concluded that voter fraud, both in person or by mail-in ballot, is so rare in this country that it happens in the general range, percentage-wise, of being struck by lightning,” Bell says.

What’s more, numerous precautions, including regular system checks and updates, are designed to prevent fraud from happening. “I don’t think it’s wrong for people to be worried about it because elections matter a lot,” says Jackson. “But I think the thing that, hopefully, might give people some comfort is that it’s very, very hard to change the outcome of an election because you’ve got to move a large number of votes, all going one way. And anything like that can be picked up very easily.”

Glimmers of Hope for Democracy: Restoring the Voting Rights Act

When it comes to easing conflicts surrounding the voting process, some attorneys say there’s at least one glimmer of hope. The proposed John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore the parts of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court struck down 10 years ago, including the federal approval required for individual states to enact certain changes in the laws. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a slim margin in 2021, but the Senate did not.

At least for now, U.S. citizens may have to work a little harder to make sure their voices are heard. “Especially over the last five to eight years, [election law] has exploded and become this very hot-button issue,” says Jackson. “But the nonpartisan thing that I think everybody can get on board with is that everybody should vote and that everybody’s right to vote should be protected.”

Find Experienced Legal Help

Visit the Super Lawyers directory to find a voting rights attorney in your area for legal advice defending your constitutional right to vote. To learn more about this area of law, see our civil rights overview.