2025-27 VOTING RIGHTS PROJECT LEGAL FELLOWSHIP

Fair Elections Center is a national, nonpartisan, non-profit voting rights and election reform organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to safeguard the future of our democracy through innovative efforts focused on voting rights and civic engagement.

The Center’s Voting Rights Project litigates cutting-edge voting rights cases in federal and state court and engages in a wide variety of advocacy efforts, including: drafting state legislation to protect and expand voting rights and submitting testimony in support of positive reforms; advocating to defeat voter suppression bills and rules; producing reports, talking points, and fact sheets on election modernization proposals and issues affecting students, people of color voters and members of language minority groups; updating our state voter guides for all 50 states; conducting trainings and seminars on voting issues for community organizations and their supporters; and working directly with Secretaries of State and local election officials to ensure that the right to vote is protected and expanded. We provide election law expertise to support state-based civic engagement coalitions and community organizations as they plan their programs, encounter problems, and engage elections officials.

Position, Duties, & Responsibilities

Fair Elections Center is seeking current law school students, recent graduates, or judicial law clerks with a background or strong interest in civil rights, voting rights, or election reform to work on cutting-edge voting rights litigation for a fully funded legal fellowship.

Fair Elections Center has an ambitious and expanding litigation docket, including challenges to voter purges in Alabama and Kentucky, lawsuits in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania aimed at protecting mail-in absentee voters from disenfranchisement by technicality, a case against Arizona’s discriminatory citizenship investigation procedures, and a First Amendment challenge to Virginia’s arbitrary re-enfranchisement system for people with felony convictions. The Center files nationwide in both federal and state court, trying to craft innovative ways to attack old, recurring voter suppression tactics and to respond to emerging threats to voter participation. We also represent clients as amici curiae at the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts.

The fellow’s duties will include drafting legal memoranda, complaints, motions, briefs, and discovery, conducting in-depth legal research for pending and future litigation, conducting the necessary factual investigation and plaintiff searches to initiate cases, drafting open records requests, reviewing relevant proceedings for legal violations, and interacting with election reform organizations and key election officials. The fellow will also engage in our legislative and administrative advocacy by working with partner election reform, registration, and mobilization groups to advance legislation, rules, and administrative practices that expand voter participation and to oppose voter suppression measures.

Defending our democracy and the right to vote at this perilous moment is an incredible privilege, as well as a tremendous challenge. A willingness to learn is a valuable asset on that road.

The fellowship will commence in August or September 2025. The fellow’s salary will start at

$65,000, with an increase for the second year. This is a full-time remote position.

Qualifications. The applicant must hold a J.D. by the summer of 2025 and take the bar in any state. Some travel may be required.

Fellows will be given significant responsibility and, therefore, must possess strong academic credentials, demonstrate their strengths in legal research, analysis, and writing, and be adept at both written and verbal communication. A passion for the defense of civil rights and voting rights is essential, as is a strong interest in an inclusive democracy. Some familiarity with election and voting laws or policy and some knowledge of barriers to the exercise of voting rights and election reform ideas are preferred.

Fair Elections Center is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity in our work environment and believe it furthers our mission. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply.