Delaware Voting Rights Coalition

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The Delaware Voting Rights Coalition (DVRC) has launched an organized public education campaign to inform Delaware voters about the upcoming 2023 School Board Elections on Tuesday, May 9. The campaign centers around a comprehensive voter guide, “How to Vote in Delaware’s School Board Elections,” and features information on the races, what voting options are available for voters, as well as links to all the resources any voter will need for more info.

Our guide is available in both English and Spanish. You can check out the guide, download copies, and download social media graphics to help spread the information.

View the guide


Who we are

We are Delaware's first statewide coalition of voting rights organizations and advocates. Under the umbrella of the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition, we are advocates encouraging voters and policymakers to consider reforms that will improve access to voting. We empower communities, especially communities of color, people who speak English as a second language, people involved in the justice system, people with disabilities, and young people, to identify and remedy barriers to the ballot box. We are ready to work with legislators, local election officials, and the Department of Elections to make these reform recommendations a reality.


Coalition partners


What we support

We want to ensure that everyone who has the right to vote can exercise that right in a meaningful, transparent, safe, and secure manner. We support reforms that broaden access for all eligible voters to register and cast their ballots. Specifically, we support reforms that: 

  • Extend the voter registration deadline through election day
  • Ensure that all registered voters are able to cast a mail ballot 
    • Make ballots widely accessible and easily returnable in each Delaware House District
    • Create a reliable process for a voter easily to track their ballot cast by mail and to correct any ballot rejection
  • Educate all eligible voters about the option to cast a mail or early vote ballot
    • All voter information should be available in multiple languages
  • Allow eligible incarcerated voters to successfully cast ballots 
  • Expand and enhance accessibility of public education materials and events for voters with disabilities 

Get involved

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Our priorities 

One thing is at the very core of our democracy: choice. Voters should have options on how we get to exercise that democratic choice.

Read more about our 2023 legislative priorities below. 

DVRC 2023 Legislative Priorities

Vote By Mail and Same-Day Registration

On Friday, October 7, 2022, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a ruling that overturned the vote by mail and same-day registration laws that were passed during the 2022 legislative session.

This decision was a devastating blow to voting rights in Delaware. Without a constitutional amendment, Delaware will be forced to navigate barriers such as arbitrary registration deadlines and long lines at the polls. As a consequence of this ruling, Delaware’s registration deadline will remain one of the longest deadlines allowed by federal law, drastically reducing voter engagement in all of our elections.

Delawareans overwhelmingly want to be able to cast their ballots freely and fairly, and vote by mail and same day registration improved access securely for thousands of voters. Delaware’s General Assembly must work now to pass constitutional amendments in order to enact these changes permanently. The Delaware Voting Rights Coalition remains committed to these advoacting for a consitutional amendment that expands access to the ballot for all voters.

Prison Voting

Voting is a right—not a privilege, and voting restrictions fall particularly hard on systems-involved individuals. Due to racial bias in the criminal justice system, barriers to voting while incarcerated, restrictions on voting while on robation, and felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect Black and brown people, who often face harsher sentences than white people for the same offenses.

In Delaware, thousands of people are disenfranchised every election because they are incarcerated. Those who are held in pretrial detention or convicted of misdemeanors do not legally lose their voting rights, but still encounter insurmountable barriers when trying to cast their ballot. During the 2022 Midterm Elections, there is no recored of a single eligible incarcerated individual in Delaware successfully casting a ballot.

Voting allows people to remain connected to their communities while incarcerated, and helps facilitate the re-entry process. Delaware lawmakers must understand the importance of maintaining and fostering this connection, and the role that access to the ballot plays in encouraging civic participation and engagement. The Delaware Voting Rights Coalition is committed to ensuring that elected officials chamption reforms that allow incarcerated individuals to request, receive, and return a ballot.

Accessibility

Even though one in four adults in Delaware identifies as having a disability, voters with disabilities continue to face some of the greatest barriers to voting in our elections- from inaccessible parking to public education and candidate information that are unavailable in accessible media formats. 

Federal law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Voting Rights Act, and Help America Vote Act requires states to:

  • Provide voters with disabilities the “full and equal opportunity to vote."
  • Make polling places fully accessible to voters with disabilities.
  • Have at least one voting system at each polling place that allows people with disabilities to vote privately and independently.
  • Allow voters with disabilities to receive in-person help at the polls from a person of their choosing (except an agent of their employer or union).
  • Provide the same opportunity for access and participation, including privacy and independence, that other voters receive.

The Delaware Department of Elections and the state can improve accessibility for voters with disabilities now by ensuring physical access during Early Voting and on Election Day, creating and supporting better transportation options, and developing a simple and effective process for the electronic delivery and return of absentee ballots for those who qualify.