VRP Files Supreme Court Amicus Brief against Department of Homeland Security

In response to the DHS stay request to permit the use of their faulty federal immigration database to launch voter registration purges, Senior Staff Attorney Bernadette Reyes led a VRP amicus brief on behalf of UCLA social scientists. The brief reviews extensive published social science research documenting the flaws of federal database matching, especially the flawed DHS SAVE system, and the dire consequences should the program be approved for use.

DHS is currently attempting to use the flawed SAVE system to detect non-citizen voters by processing bulk requests, more than a million each day across more than 16 federal databases that are known to be inaccurate, incomplete and riddled with errors. The UCLA VRP brief argues the risk for error is too large and allows potentially devastating results for naturalized citizen voters, who have a legal right to vote. Read the amicus brief here.

VRP Senior Research Fellow Releases Study that Finds Disparities in Mail Ballot Rejections 

The UCLA VRP study, authored by Michael Herndon, Ph.D., found that non-white voters are disproportionately affected and have their ballots rejected at higher rates. The study's experiments also found that racial bias can influence decisions to reject certain signatures. Read Dr. Herndon's report here.

Did you know?💡

VRP's Matt Barreto tells KALW that California stands to lose congressional districts if the Trump Administration is successful in excluding undocumented immigrants from the 2030 Census Count

VRP Legal Director Chad Dunn weighs in on the proper chain of custody that Shasta County’s Clint Curtis must follow when transporting voted ballots to Sacramento for his meeting with the grand jury

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Palmer Turnbull, VRP alumnus, graduated from UCLA Law in 2025. Recently, Palmer was part of a legal team that helped secure the release of five asylum seekers from ICE custody after they had been detained for more than a year, despite being granted withholding of removal by an immigration judge. Palmer and his team filed a habeas petition seeking their release, arguing that there was no evidence their removal to a third country was likely. ICE subsequently released all five asylum seekers, and Palmer and his team are now assisting them in obtaining work permits. Read more about the Jones Day's Border Project here.

💼Employment Opportunities - Come work with the VRP!🚨

Staff Attorney

The UCLA Voting Rights Project (VRP) seeks an experienced litigation, trial, and appellate attorney to work on a new project focused on California county, city, school, and state redistricting plans and election policies. Reporting to the Legal Director, the staff attorney/California Voting Rights Counsel will play a critical role in the VRP, developing a new program along with data scientists, to track and analyze redistricting plans and proposed changes within local jurisdictions throughout the state of California. See the full job description here. 

How else can I support the VRP?

We will be sure to update you on community events, opportunities, or individual actions you can take that support our mission. If you are interested in collaborating or sponsoring our work on a larger scale, please reach out to us at info@uclavrp.org. 

If you would like to support research, policy advocacy, and impact litigation to promote equal access to voting for all Americans, please donate here. We appreciate your support!