In 1985 New Jersey Governor Tom Kean signed New Jersey’s High School Voter Registration Law (HSVRL), which mandated that schools distribute voter registration materials and civic engagement programs to all eligible high school students in the state. Now, more than 25 years later, we are pleased to announce that a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of New Jersey on behalf of Project Vote and the Fair Elections Legal Network has resulted in a major victory towards ensuring that this important law is finally implemented.
Today the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division sided with Project Vote and our partners, and ruled that the NJ Board of Education has failed to meet their obligations under the HSVRL. Specifically, the board has failed to put in place the rules and regulations necessary to ensure that non-public school students receive the voter registration assistance the law requires. Read a press release on the decision here.
The voting rights organizations initially filed the petition after the Department of the Public Advocate issued a study in 2007 showing that between 40 and 60 percent of public school districts failed to comply with one of the mandates of the High School Voter Registration Law.
In today’s ruling, the court held that the HSVRL imposes a mandatory obligation upon the state board to craft and adopt some form of regulations “necessary to implement the provisions of the High School Voter Registration Law.” The case is especially important for the over 13,000 students who graduate from private and charter schools every year, as the state currently doesn’t monitor those schools at all for compliance with the law. Thanks to the decision, the Board will now be required to adopt regulations covering the rights of non-public school students.
School-based programs are one of the most effective means of instilling life-long voting habits, and we look forward working with the board on regulations that will increase voter registration and participation by young adults throughout New Jersey.
Youth participation is a vital issue in our democracy; over 20 million eligible Americans under the age of 30 did not vote in the 2008 election. This lawsuit represents just one of the steps Project Vote is taking to help increase youth voting across the country, including advocating for preregistration laws, fighting against barriers to voting that disproportionately impact young people, and working with local groups all over the country to help register eligible young people through high school programs. Learn more about high school registration and other youth voting issues here.