Assembly panel advances bill to protect voting rights in New Jersey

Yahoo

21 hours ago

Assemblyman Reginald Atkins (D-Union) said the bill sent a message: "Here, we expand Democracy. We don't shrink it." (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
An Assembly committee approved a bill that would create a state counterpart to the federal Voting Rights Act in what supporters said was a bid to protect New Jersey's democracy from growing federal assaults.
The measure would create a new independent office, housed in Treasury, to oversee elections where the voting rights or powers of racial and language minorities are limited. The Assembly Oversight, Reform, and Federal Relations Committee approved it Thursday in a 4-1 vote with an abstention from Assemblyman Michael Torrissi (R-Burlington).
'At a time when voting rights are under attack across the country, New Jersey must lead and continue to lead the way. This particular voter empowerment act … is our chance to send a clear message: Here, we expand Democracy. We don't shrink it,' said Assemblyman Reginald Atkins (D-Union), the panel's chair.
The bill would expand state courts' power over elections, permitting them to change rules that violate the bill's provisions, redraw voting districts, expand governing bodies, and move some election dates to coincide with higher-turnout state and federal races.
The bill would create preclearance rules at the state level, requiring localities with a history of voter suppression or intimidation to seek approval before enacting election rule changes, mirroring a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013.
Voting and civil rights groups broadly supported the bill, arguing the state needed its own protections amid escalating attacks from President Donald Trump and the waning strength of the federal law, which courts have repeatedly denuded since its enactment in 1965.
'In the past six months, we have seen attacks on voting rights at the federal level accelerate, including the Department of Justice dropping critical legal cases that aim to protect against racial discrimination in voting,' said Jesse Burns, executive director of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. 'We know that these threats are real, and we know that state-level VRAs are a powerful tool to curtail them.'
They praised a language-access provision that would require local officials to print translated election materials — including ballots, registration forms, and notices, among others — and assistance in languages other than English.
That requirement would kick in if at least 2%, or 4,000, of eligible voters speak a language other than English and have limited English proficiency. The federal law has a similar provision, but it sets a higher bar, requiring 5% of voting-age citizens with limited English proficiency before kicking in.
'New Jersey is home to over 2 million immigrants. One in four residents is an immigrant, 42.5% of whom are limited-English-proficient, but language access and expanded voted rights do not only impact them. 1.2 million New Jerseyans, regardless of citizenship status, are limited-English-proficient,' said Madison Linton, a fellow at the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.
The New Jersey Association of Election Officials opposed the bill, questioning whether it was needed and cautioning it would give courts broad authority over election administration that, to now, had largely been left with election administrators.
Linda Hughes, the association's recording secretary and Burlington County's Republican Board of Elections administrator, warned such court intervention could leave various groups of voters with different election rules and cede some of the legislature's authority to the judiciary.
'If a court determines that a disparity exists in voter turnout, vote outcomes, or even if they don't approve of a party's candidate selection, the judges — the individual judges — can then unilaterally change how those elections are run in certain jurisdictions throughout the state,' she said.
It was unclear how officials could identify discrimination based on a voter's protected class — in the bill's case, those in a racial or language minority group — given such information was not recorded on voter registrations, Hughes said.
Some witnesses urged the committee to expand the definition of protected class to include sexual orientation, gender identity, and criminal history.
Residents must provide notice to clerks asserting violations of the bill's provisions. After receiving the notice, officials are guarded from lawsuits for up to 190 days while they work on fixes, which must be approved by the new voting rights office.
Hughes questioned whether there was even a need for the bill.
'This legislation seems to imply there are voters wanting to vote that are being prevented from participating … We just don't have any evidence that that's happening here in New Jersey, so this legislation does seem like it is a bit of a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist,' she said.
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice identified 885 cases of voter intimidation, voter ID, registration, or polling access issues in the state between 2020 and 2024, said Nuzhat Chowdhury, director of its democracy and justice program.
Proponents argued much of the powers the bill, dubbed the John Lewis Voter Empowerment Act after the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader, would grant to the courts were already available as remedies under the federal Voting Rights Act.
Assemblyman Mike Inganamort (R-Morris), the only lawmaker to vote against it in committee Thursday, largely echoed Hughes' concerns about the bill. But he added his own reservations about the costs of language-access provisions and questioned reasoning behind leaving enforcement to the new Treasury office rather than the attorney general.
'The attorney general's office provides counsel that is clear, timely, consistent, and free. That process works. Instead, this legislation calls for a new department, in the Department of Treasury of all places — I guess they have the desk space, I still don't understand that aspect — that is going to be doing the job the attorney general already does,' Inganamort said.
Enforcement was moved away from the attorney general's office because state lawyers advise election officials on legal matters, and requiring them to enforce the bill would create a conflict of interest, said Chowdhury.
The measure has not advanced in the Senate since it was introduced there last March.
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