Know your voter rights – and where to get help if your vote is challenged

Several states are holding local elections today. It’s important to know what your voter rights are and where to seek help if you feel that anyone has blocked you from exercising your Constitutional right to vote.

A good place to turn for information about your rights is the League of Women Voters. If you have questions about voting issues call their voting rights hotline website Vote411.org. Visit the website or

Call one of these national hotlines:
1-866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)
1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español)
1-888-API-VOTE (Asian multilingual assistance)
1-844-418-1682 (Arabic) read more

Voting Rights Timeline in the US

Voting rights in the US are closely tied to other important social issues: the right to own property, First Amendment free speech rights, rights to assemble and to be the master of one’s own destiny. These resources show when the right to vote was obtained by various populations of American society.

Timeline by Center for Democracy

Timeline by the ACLU in graphic format and as a pdf file

The voting rights timelines does not address two other serious voting rights issues being played out in the US: using felony disenfranchisement as a mechanism to prevent Black men (plus some women) and Latinos from exercising their voting rights, which has become a type of apartheid in these communities. Michelle Alexander writes about this in her book, The New Jim Crow and the concerted Republican effort put in place since the first GWB election in 2000 which seeks to purge legitimate voters from voting rolls in targeted communities and otherwise restrict voting rights across the country. read more