The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday launched a multimillion-dollar effort it said is aimed at protecting the integrity of elections in the United States from the Trump administration.
The ACLU announced it is pouring nearly $25 million to safeguard voting rights from a “coordinated attack on multiple fronts,” asserting that “democracy hangs in the balance.” The other half of the historic national $50 million effort will be directed to political races and ballot measure campaigns, the liberal organization told NBC News, including state Supreme Court races in Montana and North Carolina, secretary of state races in Arizona and Nevada, and state legislative contests in Montana, Georgia, and Michigan.
“Given all the signals that we’ve received from this administration, all of the totally unprecedented ways that they have acted to intervene in elections and to undermine mail-in voting and to insert DOJ in election processes in a way that is unprecedented and inappropriate, we would be foolish to not be prepared,” said Deidre Schifeling, the ACLU chief political and advocacy officer.
The ACLU plans to deploy more than 100 paid staff members and more than 3,000 volunteer leaders to encourage people to vote and “ensure voter access” while monitoring ballot counting and certification, as part of the $24.5 million election-monitoring effort. Those people will coordinate thousands of other volunteers, the organization told the outlet, revealing it has already trained 5,000 people “on election work” and plans to train 5,000 more. Seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — are set to receive the bulk of the investment.
The ACLU’s announcement has already sparked pushback from Republicans.
“The ACLU has nothing to do with the ‘smooth’ administration of elections,” a senior legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation wrote in a post to X. “Fake news.”
“The ACLU opposes voter ID and supports noncitizens voting,” another conservative posted. “We know what ‘smooth’ means to the ACLU.”
The 2026 midterm elections promise to be a pivotal time for the country. Republicans are looking to sustain slim majorities in both chambers of Congress to continue carrying out President Donald Trump’s agenda for his final two years in office.
TRUMP FIRES WARNING SHOT AT NATO AHEAD OF MEETING WITH SECRETARY GENERAL
Democrats believe they have momentum against Trump to flip Congress blue, particularly in the Senate. Races in Texas, Maine, Ohio, and elsewhere have gained notice, particularly as Democrats run candidates they believe can swing the state to their side and gain a majority in the upper chamber.
“He’s lost his base and his voters from 2024, and it seems like he’s given up trying to win them back,” a senior Democratic Party official said of Trump in previous comments to the Washington Examiner.