News & Commentary

"We are hopeful the case will be decided before the start of early voting, and before any more registered voters can be disenfranchised," said Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas.  "One more voter losing his or her vote is one too many."In April, the ACLU and the Arkansas Public Law Center (APLC) challenged the Arkansas Voter ID law in state court on behalf of four individual voters, asserting that the law added a new qualification to voting over and above the qualifications for voting set by the Arkansas Constitution (press release here).  We sought an order preventing the law from going into effect, and the judge agreed: he ruled that the Voter ID law violated voting rights as protected by the Arkansas Constitution.  The judge issued that order, but stayed his own ruling because a related case regarding absentee ballots was pending before the Arkansas Supreme Court and early voting was set to start for the primary within a few days.  The state immediately appealed the ruling in our case to that Court.  We are asking the judge in the lower court to lift the stay before the general election, and are fighting the appeal.  With the law in effect during May's primary elections, we saw over a thousand votes by registered voters invalidated due to the voter ID law. Get an educational brochure about the Voter ID Law here.

On Friday, May 9, 2014, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza effectively struck down Arkansas’ ban on same-sex marriage. Judge Piazza’s ruling declared both Amendment 83 to the state constitution, approved by voters in 2004, and Act 144 of 1997, Arkansas’s law banning same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. (Read the entire ruling here.) Attorneys Cheryl Maples and Jack Wagoner represented over 20 couples in the case, Wright v. Arkansas.

Amicus Brief in support of ACLU of Arkansas and the Arkansas Public Law Center regarding the constitutionality of the voter ID law and history of elections in Arkansas. 

August 11, 2014

Amicus Brief in support of ACLU of Arkansas and the Arkansas Public Law Center regarding the constitutionality of Act 595 and the administrative duties surrounding the election acitivities including voter registration and absentee voting. 

Amicus Brief in support of ACLU of Arkansas and the Arkansas Public Law Center regarding the constitutional and legal history and the impacts of election laws on voter participation.