Amid Federal Inaction, New York Democrats Look to Advance State Voting Rights Act

With the failure of federal voting rights legislation this month in the U.S. Senate, advocates in New York are redoubling a push to pass a sweeping state bill that would shore up voting protections for historically disenfranchised groups.

Legislators introduced the John R. Lewis New York State Voting Rights Act in 2020 to fill at the state level some of the holes left in the federal Voting Rights Act after successive defangings by the U.S. Supreme Court in the past decade. The bill would enshrine a range of protections against voter dilution, require language access, and give the State Attorney General preclearance authority over potentially-discriminatory voting policy changes. But it has not yet advanced in either house of the Legislature.