Election Day is fast approaching, and while we’re doing everything we can to prepare, some questions remain unanswered.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman join the At the Polls podcast this week to discuss litigation across the country that could impact who gets to vote and how.

At the Polls: Will Litigation Decide the 2020 Election?

At the Polls: Will Litigation Decide the 2020 Election?

Ahead of this year’s election, we have seen an unprecedented amount of election litigation between both political parties. The Republican National Committee, at the direction of President Trump, has amassed a $20 million war chest for voting right...

Ahead of this year’s election, we have seen an unprecedented amount of election litigation between both political parties. The Republican National Committee, at the direction of President Trump, has amassed a $20 million war chest for voting right...

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Election years are always busy for the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, but this year is even more action-packed due to the pandemic. For many, the safest way to vote is to vote by mail, yet millions of eligible voters nationwide cannot access the ballot due to state restrictions on who is allowed to cast an absentee ballot. Other requirements, such as those mandating witness signatures and ballot notarization, do not allow for CDC-recommended social distancing.

The ACLU has filed 25 lawsuits in 19 states and Puerto Rico to expand access to vote by mail and to challenge unnecessary witness, notary, and voter ID requirements. In the latest episode of At the Polls, we take a closer look at how litigation after the election could end up in the Supreme Court, and what we can all do now to avoid that scenario.

Listen now and subscribe to stay up to date on election news.

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Transgender people like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Laverne Cox and Janet Mock have been at the forefront of the fight for liberation in the LGBTQ community since the Stonewall riots in 1969. Yet trans folks, and particularly trans people of color, face and experience a higher rate of violence and death than other groups within the LGBTQ community. The names of the mostly Black and brown trans people who have died, and some killed, over the last few years continues to grow.

Happy 75th Birthday Marsha ‘Pay It No Mind’ Johnson. Co-founder of Gay Liberation Front, Co-founder of S.T.A.R. and ACT UP member. Black Trans HIV+ Sex Worker Lives Matter today and everyday. We honor you. pic.twitter.com/cyqf4bnoG2

— ACT UP NY (@actupny) August 24, 2020

We know the names of trans people of color who were recent victims of deadly violence and we say their names: In Florida: Yaz'min Shancez, Bee Love Slater, Tony McDade, and the many in Jacksonville. Across America: Roxsana Hernandez, Muhlaysia Booker, Nina Pop, and Aerrion Burnett. Dozens of trans and nonbinary people across America whose lives were cut short since 2019. We should all be alarmed by these high rates of violence and harassment.

The number of the recently reported violent deaths of trans people of color in America is compounded by issues of inadequate access to healthcare for these especially marginalized Black and brown people, exacerbated by an inability for many to find stable work and housing, even after the landmark June Supreme Court decision explicitly outlawing workforce discrimination against LGBTQ people.

Trans people are our family members, friends, and neighbors. We all must ensure they can live their lives openly and without fear of discrimination.

Legislators returning to the Florida State Capitol for the 2021 session must use their power to make our communities and our state safer for transgender and all LGBTQ people to live by supporting the Florida Competitive Workforce Act. The ACLU of Florida has backed the bill in consecutive legislative sessions, following its introduction in 2009.

The Florida Competitive Workforce Act would explicitly expand the workplace protections of the June 2020 SCOTUS decision to include antidiscrimination protections for access to housing and public accommodations.

More than 40 years after Dade County Commissioner Ruth Shack shepherded passage of a comprehensive human rights ordinance for Greater Miami that became a model for communities across America, it is long past due that those protections be applied statewide. All Floridians deserve to live free from fear of discrimination at home and in public. It is long past due that Florida lawmakers make this a reality for all Floridians.

We, your Black friends, family, and colleagues, are not okay. A Black woman, asleep in her bed, was murdered in cold blood and the system didn’t just find her killers innocent — they found their crime, the crime of ending the life of a Black woman, unworthy of even being charged.

We work alongside you at the American Civil Liberties Union, fighting for a country that’s never loved us and forced to fight within a system built to harm and kill us. A legal system that says explicitly that Black lives do not matter. A system that calls for more accountability for putting bullets into drywall than into a Black woman.

I ask you to imagine how the system would have responded if these police had murdered a white woman EMT (during a global pandemic) in her sleep. Does anyone think it would have taken six months to convene the grand jury? Does anyone think there wouldn’t even be a trial? Does anyone think that this country reacts and punishes the harm done to Black women with even a semblance of the outrage and protection we reserve for other communities?

If you are not Black and you’re asking yourself, “How can I help my Black friends, family members, and colleagues?”, here is a non-exhaustive list of what you can do today:

1. Offer your Black staff and colleagues the opportunity to take time off and help redistribute their workload. Do not just send a note that says, “It’s okay if you need to take some time.” Send a note that says, “I want to support you in taking time off. What can I take off your plate? What meetings can I attend in your place? How can I make that happen?”

2. Be mindful of when/how you are processing your feelings. If you’re not Black, this is the time to be especially mindful of how, when, and with whom you are processing your grief, pain, and anger. Do not put additional emotional labor on your Black friends and colleagues. 

3. Do acknowledge the impact of this tragedy. Carve out space in agendas you create to address the trauma and be clear not to move on with “business as usual” without holding that space. 

4. Call each other in and call each other forward. Be in solidarity by spending your political capital on racial justice at work and find a way to do it without virtue signaling or centering yourself. Most of your allyship should take place “backstage,” out of the spotlight.

Continue educating yourself, amplifying Black voices, donating to Black leadership causes, protesting and demanding justice for Black lives. Those actions matter. At the very same time, support and uplift Black people — on your teams, in our organization, and in your life. For every public, external action you take for racial justice, I invite you to take an action inside our walls with that same spirit.

To my Black colleagues: I know you’re not okay. I’m not okay either. We have been fighting for justice every day for 400 years and today we are grieving, we are enraged, and we are exhausted. I see you, I’m with you, I am you. We are not alone in our grief, not abandoned in our anger, not uncared for in our exhaustion. We are in this with each other, with the legacies of our ancestors and the vision of our youth. With the wisdom of our elders and the unwavering guidance of our leaders.

Amber Hikes, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, ACLU