Supreme Court Lets 7 States Bar Private Voting Rights Lawsuits

The Supreme Court declined on June 22, 2026, to hear an Arkansas voting rights case. The move leaves in place a lower-court ruling that strips private groups of the power to sue under the Voting Rights Act in seven states.

The case began with Arkansas United, an immigrant advocacy group that provides Spanish-language interpreters at polling places. It challenged an Arkansas law that bars anyone who is not a poll worker from helping more than six voters cast a ballot.

The Court Never Reached the Discrimination Question

The 8th Circuit panel did not decide whether the Arkansas law discriminates. In 2025 it ruled that private groups have no right to bring the lawsuit at all, because the Voting Rights Act does not spell out that right in so many words.

That reading breaks with sixty years of practice. The 8th Circuit is the only federal appeals court to decide that private plaintiffs cannot enforce the law.

Why Private Lawsuits Are the Whole Game

Private lawsuits are how the Voting Rights Act has been enforced since 1965. Voters, the NAACP, and groups like Arkansas United bring the large majority of cases. The Justice Department files only a handful in any given year.

By turning the case away, the Supreme Court lets that enforcement engine switch off across Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

7 states where private groups can no longer sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act, after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

In those states, the only body left that can sue to stop racial discrimination in voting is a Justice Department that this administration is actively shrinking. A right that no one can enforce is not much of a right.

What Could Undo It

The 8th Circuit ruling binds only its seven states. Every other federal appeals court still lets private plaintiffs sue, and Congress can settle the split for the whole country.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would write the private right of action directly into the statute. That single change would undo the 8th Circuit’s reading and restore the enforcement that built six decades of voting rights law.

What You Can Do Now

Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121. Ask them to co-sponsor and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and to make the private right of action explicit so courts cannot read it out of the law again.
If you hit a problem casting a ballot, call the Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683). Volunteer lawyers answer year-round in English, Spanish, and other languages.
Support the groups that bring these cases. The Brennan Center and the ACLU litigate voting rights nationwide and track which states the ruling now covers.
Use the letter below to tell your representatives to restore what the courts have taken apart.