Ahead of the November midterms, the League of Women Voters is marking the Voting Rights Act’s 61st anniversary with a virtual rally and nationwide Day of Action to mobilize voters.
This year’s midterm elections have the power to dramatically alter representation in the current Republican-leaning Congress: All 435 congressional seats in the U.S. House are up for grabs, as is two-thirds of the Senate. Public health, women’s health, abortion access, the cost of living, healthcare affordability, immigration justice and a host of other issues hang in the balance.
However, the Trump administration is working to quietly disrupt voting this November, from firing the remaining U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) members, to continuing to challenge the legality of mail-in ballots and lobby the Supreme Court to do Trump’s bidding—part of an ongoing effort to expand federal control over election administration ahead of the midterms.
In June, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled against the Republican National Committee in Watson v. RNC, a decision that would have prevented ballots postmarked by Election Day from counting if they arrived shortly afterward.
On June 30, the Court struck down President Trump’s executive order that would have ended birthright citizenship (which guarantees U.S. citizenship, and the right to vote, to everyone born in this country), by only a 6-3 margin.
“There’s just this onslaught that’s coming from the administration itself, and then the judiciary,” Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, told Ms. “I don’t think it gives people a lot of confidence that [the Supreme Court justices] understand how important voting rights are … You can see the erosion on the Court as they move toward supporting the administration more and moving away from public discourse and public opinion.”
Thursday, Aug. 6, will mark the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, first passed in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. Congress passed the VRA in order to end post-Civil War and Jim Crow-era voter disenfranchisement, especially in southern states, by prohibiting “literacy tests,” mass voter challenges and other techniques states were using to stop Black Americans from voting.
Voters today also have the VRA to thank for ballots in languages other than English and protections for blind, disabled and illiterate voters.
But, on April 29, the Supreme Court’s devastating ruling in Louisiana v. Callais dismantled the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, which prohibits voting rules or procedures that discriminate against voters based on race, color or language minority status. Louisiana v. Callais was an unprecedented legal attack to voting rights that voting-rights advocates are still reckoning with and working to make sense of the fallout. The Court’s ruling effectively gives a green light to race-based gerrymandering of voting districts.
Unsurprisingly, lawmakers immediately moved to redraw congressional voting district maps, including in Florida—a new trend that shows no sign of stopping.
We need to just make sure that as many people are voting early as possible because the biggest threats are likely to come on Election Day.
Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters
At the same time, election rules across the country are currently shifting, while proposed legislation moving through Congress right now is attempting to make it harder for people to vote.
The proposed Voter ID Act, for example, would create the unnecessary barrier of requiring voters to present government-issued photo IDs in order to vote.
The SAVE Act suite of bills would require voters to present documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC)—such as a passport or a certified birth certificate—to even register to vote, even though many eligible voters don’t have such documents readily available. Feminist advocates have also argued that, by affecting married women with different combinations of their maiden name and married name across different documents, the SAVE Act is in part a sneaky attempt to reduce the number of women voting in November.
On Saturday, Aug. 8, the League of Women Voters is leading a nationwide “Unite and Rise for Voting Rights” Day of Action to commemorate the VRA’s anniversary and call attention to SCOTUS’ attempt to decimate it. The Day of Action will also bring together League of Women Voters chapters and partner organizations across the country to lead hundreds of events with the goal of mobilizing voters before November’s midterms.
The Day of Action is part of the League’s Unite and Rise 8.5 initiative, started in 2025, which hopes to engage 8.5 million U.S. voters before November’s midterms—10 percent of the 89.2 million who did not vote in the 2024 presidential election.
And on the VRA’s anniversary on Thursday, Aug. 6, the League will host a virtual rally.
“It’s really about honoring the legacy of the Voting Rights Act while recognizing the work is still very much unfinished,” Stewart says. “With everything going on, we just want to have a day where people are focused on action, not just awareness, and bring people together to really make a collective statement about how important voting rights are right now.”
Now that August is here, there are scarcely three months left to get people registered to vote before November. The League is urging voters to use this time to double-check their voter registration and write to their representatives asking them to stand up for voting rights in Congress.
According to Stewart, the recent proposed changes to voting rights intentionally confuse voters about rights they have and whether or not they’ll be eligible to vote in November, even if they successfully voted in 2025 or 2024. “The League’s focus is really about making sure that people have the information they need to feel confident to vote, whether that is knowing who’s on your ballot and what they believe in… [or] making sure people know the different ways that they can still vote.”
This year, the League of Women is also encouraging people to vote by mail and vote early, especially communities that are being particularly targeted, such as women, people in rural areas and Black, Latino and AAPI communities.
“We need to just make sure that as many people are voting early as possible because the biggest threats are likely to come on Election Day,” Stewart says.
The fact that nearly 90 million eligible voters did not vote in 2024 suggests voter disillusionment is a widespread problem in the U.S., but people can make a difference on an individual level by encouraging their friends, family and neighbors to vote. At the same time, even with millions of Americans not voting, the last two presidential election cycles showed record voting turnout. “That shows there’s energy around this country and that people want to fight back,” says Stewart.
Finally, even though 2026 so far has shown a staggering number of threats to people’s voting rights, there is still enough time before November to register and educate as many voters as possible, which the League of Women Voters’ Day of Action on August 8 seeks to remind people of. And, as with so many voting rights breakthroughs of the past, Stewart says it will be women who determine the 2026 midterms.
“Activate as many women as you can for this election. Let’s go vote, do what we need to do to make sure we protect our autonomy, our liberation, our freedom in this country,” she says. “This is our opportunity right now to show our strength. We have done it during the suffrage movement. We did it during the Voting Rights Act. This is our moment in modern day history.”
The League of Women Voters’ virtual Unite & Rise Pep Rally will take place at 3 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 6. More information about the Day of Action on Aug. 8 and how to find local events is available on the League of Women Voters’ website.
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