About
The UCLA Voting Rights Project (VRP) is an interdisciplinary academic research center aimed at ensuring equitable and accessible voting for all Americans.
The UCLA VRP was founded by Dr. Matt A. Barreto (Division of Social Sciences, Luskin School of Public Affairs) and Chad W. Dunn (School of Law, Luskin School of Public Affairs) to address three significant and overlooked gaps in the voting rights field: training newly graduated lawyers and social science expert witnesses; developing new legal and social science theories for voting rights cases; and advancing voting rights through national and local public policy. The mission of the UCLA VRP is to provide hands-on clinical training to future lawyers, public policy officials, and social scientists while calling attention to the voting rights obstacles faced today in underserved towns, cities, and counties across the country. In the past six years, we have trained hundreds of students through our course and clinic, with more than 75% being students of color.
The UCLA VRP focuses on three action areas:
- Inter-disciplinary and hands-on clinical education with students from UCLA School of Law, the Luskin School of Public Policy and Division of Social Sciences;
- Impact litigation and legal advocacy focused on creating representation and access to voting for communities in underserved towns, cities, school boards, and counties; and
- Academic research on voting issues such as voting patterns, voter turnout, and language justice that can be directly translated into policy advocacy and policy implementation.
The focus on local, historically and routinely disenfranchised communities as the first stop for voting rights litigation marks the UCLA VRP as a unique public-service project.
Through impact litigation in connection with community, the VRP has successfully enfranchised Latino communities in Washington, California, Texas, and New York; Native American voters in New Mexico and North Dakota, and Black voters in Texas. Some of the VRP victories include:
- Securing a new map for Latino/a voters in the Yakima Valley region of Washington state under Section 2 of the Federal Voting Rights Act. For the first time, Latino/a voters will now have an opportunity to elect three candidates of choice to the Washington Legislature in 2024.
- In 2023, the team successfully argued before the Washington Supreme Court concerning the constitutionality and validity of the Washington Voting Rights Act of 2018 (WVRA). The state Supreme Court found that the WVRA was constitutional and “protects all Washington voters from discrimination on the basis of race, color, and language minority group.” The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the case and the Washington law designed to prevent vote dilution for minority voters will remain in effect. (Pictured to right, Chad Dunn, Edwardo Morfin, Gabriel Portugal, Sonni Waknin)
- After a two-week long trial, a federal judge found that that Galveston County’s redistricting plan impermissibly diluted the voting power of the long-standing Black and Latino community. Arguing before the entire Fifth Circuit en banc, the VRP’s Legal Director defended the decision and the validity of minority-coalition claims. The case is currently remanded before the district court.
- In 2022-24, the VRP represented Native American voters, working alongside the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, the ACLU of New Mexico, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights to challenge the gerrymandered districting system in San Juan County, NM. Even though the American Indian population is near 45% of the total population, the County packed Navajo into one single district. After nearly two years of litigation, the Plaintiffs (represented in part by the UCLA Voting Rights Project) and San Juan County entered into a legally binding settlement to create two majority-Navajo districts that would provide American Indians the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.
Research
The UCLA VRP’s research and policy agenda makes the reality of an equitable multi-racial democracy possible. Using both our data science and legal expertise, we have lobbied to multiple counties and localities across the United States to enact equitable districting plans, ensuring that communities would be protected under state and federal law for a decade to come. Since 2020, the UCLA VRP has monitored election practices cross the country for compliance with language access legal requirements, sending language-access notice letters to counties lacking compliance with state and federal election law. These efforts have resulted in improved access to election information and increased visibility of non-English materials. Additionally, the VRP, in connection with community organizations and allies in local and state governments, is currently investigating the number of voters in Los Angeles who speak indigenous Central American languages and are likely to be protected under California’s election code.
Further, the VRP turns out in-depth and accurate analysis of voting patterns on ballot measures by race and ethnicity to understand how communities of color vote on specific issues across the United States. Our post-election voter analysis is regularly features in news outlets from the L.A. Times, NPR, the Washington Post and New York Times.
We have published research on voter behavior, voting patterns, polarized voting in local, state, and federal elections, voter engagement, and research on barriers to voting, among other voting and election related issues that have directly impacted voters. To better understand all voter experiences in California, the VRP has also conducted research on disability access to voting, utilizing focus groups and one-on-one sessions with voters who identify as having a disability. The findings of this research eventually led the California Secretary of State to publish policy suggestions to improve disability voting in California. Additionally, the VRP racial vote choice preference studies were utilized by policy makers and community organizations to ensure that Orange County and Yolo County drew districting plans in 2021 that maintained communities of interest, ensured that voters of color had the ability to elect candidates of choice under the Voting Rights Act, and effectively prevented vote dilution.
The UCLA VRP has also pioneered the use of Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG), allowing policy makers and stakeholders to better understand voter turnout patterns and how voters engage with election infrastructure. Through BISG, researchers match U.S. Census race and ethnicity data to the voter file, providing us with clearer race and ethnicity estimates. This is important because outside of states formerly covered under the Federal Voting Rights Act (until parts of the Act were struck down), no state mandates the reporting of race and ethnicity on a voter file. Through BISG, VRP can provide accurate racial estimates of voters, enhancing our ability to study voter turnout disparities. Dr. Matt Barreto has pioneered the use of BISG in voting rights litigation; and has pushed for BISG analysis to be accepted by the United States Court of Appeals in the Second and Ninth Circuit, and in federal districts in Washington, Texas, and New York.
Clinical Education
The VRP’s groundbreaking research has been accepted by multiple courts, advancing the study of voting patterns. Our clinical education program has graduated hundreds of students who have gone on to be the next cadre of legal and policy leaders. Undergraduate students partaking in the clinic have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in Law, Public Policy and Data Science. Graduate students have moved on to take jobs with the Brennan Center for Justice, American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), and more.
In addition to the VRP practicum course, law students from around the nation, from universities such as the University of California, School of Law, New York University School of Law, University of California, Davis, and University of Pennsylvania are invited to participate in an annual summer fellowship where they learn the basics of voting rights law and gain hands on experience with active clinic litigation. Alumni of our fellowship have gone on to work for the United States House of Representatives; United States Federal and Circuit Court judges; various state supreme court judges; Campaign Legal Center; ACLU; and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.
