Author: Steven F. Huefner

Due process and election administration The due process clause of the 14th Amendment provides that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” But just what is “due process” can be hard to define. With respect to state election activities, a variety of federal appellate courts have struggled to determine whether a change or defect in the state’s election mechanics has so interfered with voters’ ability to exercise their right to vote – a fundamental liberty interest – that it violates the guarantee...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is widely considered to be the single most important federal statute protecting the right to vote. The Act contains a number of important provisions, but today it is Section 2 of the Act that continues to have the greatest impact. Adopted essentially as an enforcement mechanism for the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that the right to vote cannot be abridged “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” Section 2 allows anyone to seek judicial relief who believes that a state or local...