Supreme Court lets stand ruling barring private Voting Rights Act suits in seven states
The Supreme Court on June 22 declined to review an Arkansas case , leaving in place a 2025 appeals-court ruling that private individuals and advocacy groups have no right to sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act. The order affects the seven states in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
The case grew out of a challenge by the immigrant-advocacy group Arkansas United, which provides Spanish-language interpreters at polling sites and contested a state law barring anyone who is not a poll worker from helping more than six voters cast ballots. A federal judge ruled in 2022 that the law violated Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which lets voters with a disability or limited literacy choose who assists them. The 8th Circuit panel reversed, finding that private parties cannot bring such suits at all.
For decades most Voting Rights Act enforcement has come from private plaintiffs rather than the Justice Department. By letting the lower-court ruling stand without comment, the justices leave that route closed across the circuit, shifting the burden of enforcement onto a federal government that brings comparatively few such cases. The question remains unresolved nationally, setting up a likely future split among the appeals courts.