The Voting Rights Act Turned 61 This Week. Here's What's Changed Since We Last Checked In.

THE DISPATCH — CIVIC EDUCATION

A nationwide day of action lands the same week Maryland's and Vermont's new state voting rights laws are getting their first real test.

This past Thursday, August 6, marked sixty one years since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today, two days later, the League of Women Voters and dozens of partner organizations are marking that anniversary with "Unite & Rise for Voting Rights," a single day of action with more than 350 events planned across all 50 states.

Good Trouble Circle isn't organizing an event of our own today, but we want you to know it's happening, and we want to use the occasion to check back in on a story we've been tracking since spring: what happens to voting rights protection when the federal government steps back.

That might sound like a one day news cycle. It's not. It's about whether the backstop states like Maryland and Vermont built this year actually holds.

FIRST: WHAT IS A STATE VOTING RIGHTS ACT, AND WHY DO WE NEED ONE?

We wrote at length back in May about the Supreme Court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, the main tool courts used to strike down maps and rules that dilute the voting power of Black and Latino communities. If you missed it, that full piece is still up at goodtroublecircle.org/dispatch.

Think of Section 2 as a district-wide policy that used to let a strong district office overrule any one school's unfair rule, as long as the rule caused real harm. After Callais, that district office can only step in if it can prove a school wrote the rule specifically to target a group of kids, a much higher bar to clear. A state voting rights act is a school writing its own version of that protection directly into its own handbook. It's enforced by the school's own principal, meaning the state attorney general, and the school's own disciplinary board, meaning state courts, so it isn't at the mercy of what the district office decides anymore.

WHAT HAPPENED

Maryland acted first, and fast. Governor Wes Moore signed the Maryland Voting Rights Act on April 28, one day before Callais came down. It bars counties and municipalities from using election methods that dilute the vote of a protected class, and lets both the Attorney General and individual residents sue in state court to fix it. Maryland became the 10th state with its own voting rights act.

Since then, two more states have joined. New Jersey became the 11th on July 14. Vermont took a different path. Governor Phil Scott signed S.298, the Voter Protections Act of 2026, on June 8, but the version he signed is much smaller than what the Vermont Senate originally passed 28 to 0 back in March. That original bill would have added a preclearance system, multilingual ballots, a private right of action against at large election systems that dilute votes, and a Voter Education and Outreach Fund. What survived is a narrower vote denial and dilution standard enforced only by Vermont's Attorney General, with civil penalties up to five thousand dollars for a first violation and up to twenty five thousand for repeat violations, plus a new criminal charge for interfering with voters or election officials.

Meanwhile in Maryland, a separate fight over the DOJ's attempt to obtain the state's full, unredacted voter roll data ended on June 18, when a federal judge dismissed the DOJ's lawsuit against State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis. It was the ninth time in 2026 a federal court has ruled against the administration's attempts to get unredacted voter data from states that refused to hand it over.

Today, two days after the anniversary, the League of Women Voters and coalition partners including Black Voters Matter, Common Cause, LULAC and the NAACP are holding Unite & Rise for Voting Rights, with more than 350 events nationwide as part of a stated goal to mobilize 8.5 million voters by November.

WHAT SUPPORTERS SAY

Delegate Vaughn Stewart, one of the architects of Maryland's law, has said the point of building state-level protection was precisely so it wouldn't depend on the Supreme Court. "Callais gutted the federal remedy, but it did not gut ours, because ours is a separate law in state court with state standards," he said. Governor Moore put it more bluntly: "Even if Washington won't protect your vote, I will."

Vermont advocates who fought for the fuller bill are more measured about what passed, but they still call it real progress. The law that emerged keeps an enforceable dilution standard and gives the Attorney General teeth to act, which is more protection than existed before, even if it's less than organizers wanted.

The League of Women Voters frames today's Day of Action as necessary given everything that's happened since April. Voter engagement and turnout, especially among young voters, is the strategy they're leaning on now that some of the old legal tools are weaker.

WHAT CRITICS SAY

Some of the same advocates who pushed for Vermont's original bill are candid that the final version fell short. An analysis from Compass Vermont concluded the law now protects candidates from interference more than it protects voters from dilution, since the preclearance system, multilingual ballot requirements, and private right of action were all stripped out before Governor Scott signed it.

On the federal side, the Trump administration has signaled it may eventually argue that Callais preempts state-level voting rights acts too, though as of this writing no such lawsuit has been filed against Maryland's law specifically. Critics of the Day of Action model, meanwhile, argue that mobilization events are no substitute for the legal protections that got weakened this spring, since higher turnout doesn't fix a map that was drawn to dilute a community's vote before ballots are ever cast.

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW YET

Whether the DOJ or private plaintiffs will directly challenge Maryland's or any other state's voting rights act on Callais grounds is still an open question. It's also unclear whether Vermont advocates will get another shot at the stronger version of their bill in a future session, or whether other states considering their own laws will end up watered down the same way. And whether today's Day of Action translates into the turnout organizers are hoping for won't be clear until ballots are actually cast in November.

See if there's still an event near you today, or find upcoming actions leading into November.

See Today's Day of Action

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Find out if there's a Unite & Rise for Voting Rights event still happening near you today. If you're reading this after August 8, the League's site tracks ongoing actions leading into November.
2. Read the Maryland Voting Rights Act guidance from the Attorney General's office so you know what protections actually exist in our state, not just what you've heard secondhand.
3. If you live in Vermont or know someone who does, ask your state legislators whether they intend to revisit the fuller Voter Protections Act next session.

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