In summer 2008, UEAALDF stopped Ward Connerly from using racially-targeted voter fraud to place the deceptive, anti-affirmative-action “Arizona Civil Rights Initiative” on the Fall 2008 ballot.
Connerly spent over $1 million to pay petition circulators to use the petition’s deceptive language to lie to black and Latina/o voters about the initiative’s purpose, claiming it would “help” minorities get into college. Thousands of minority voters were cheated into signing the initiative petition.
UEAALDF exposed this dishonest and scandalous effort and took legal action to stop this violation of minorities’ voting rights. The effort kept the Arizona initiative off the ballot and defeated Connerly in what he termed his “ground zero” — crippling his effort to ban affirmative action through the same methods in four other states that year. By the end of 2008, Connerly’s national effort was a failure.
Legal Documents:
Voting Rights Act lawsuit vs. the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative
Letter to the Attorney General regarding ACRI Voter Fraud