The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP, Norman grantee 1975–1978, 1984–1985) was founded in 1974 in San Antonio, Texas under the motto Su Voto Es Su Voz: Your Vote Is Your Voice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 largely bypassed Latino communities, whose political exclusion was enforced by at-large electoral systems, gerrymandered districts, and English-only ballots that rendered millions of Spanish-speaking citizens effectively shut out of the political process. SVREP launched hundreds of grassroots voter registration drives across Texas and the Southwest to change that and ultimately exposed the scale of the problem.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF, Norman grantee 1970, 1975, 1979) worked alongside SVREP to bring evidence of discriminatory practices against Latinos to Congress. In 1975, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act to include protections for language-minority voters for the first time, requiring bilingual election materials in areas with significant Latino, Asian American, Native American, or Alaskan Native populations. The VRA also expanded its preclearance requirement — a provision requiring federal approval for a jurisdiction to change its election laws — to an additional 276 counties in Texas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, and New York.

Within a decade of SVREP’s founding, the number of registered Latino voters increased by 50 percent, and the number of Latino elected officials grew dramatically across the Southwest. SVREP remains the oldest and largest nonpartisan Latino voter participation organization in the United States, having registered 3.6 million Latino voters, trained 160,000 Latino leaders, and won more than 200 voting rights lawsuits. MALDEF continues its work today, litigating cases across the country to protect Latino voting rights, combat discrimination, and advance equal access to education and opportunity.

Media:

• MALDEF video: MALDEF on the 1975 Voting Rights Act