Voting is supposed to be a right—but in America, it’s never guaranteed.
Even in California, a state widely regarded for its robust voter protections, local jurisdictions can dilute votes through local rules, district boundaries, and administrative practices. From city councils to school boards, the mechanics of democracy still decide whose voices are heard.
For Chad Dunn, legal director and co-founder of the UCLA Voting Rights Project (VRP), that reality is precisely why the work exists.
“Every generation of Americans and every generation of people in a democracy has to re-secure their democratic rights,” Dunn says. “They’re never permanently safe.”
Dunn, who also serves as a lecturer at the UCLA School of Law and the Luskin School of Public Affairs, describes the program as blending high-stakes litigation with rigorous research and hands-on student training.
“The Voting Rights Project is training the next generation of voting rights practitioners,” he explains, “whether it be lawyers, data scientists, or courtroom experts, to secure democracy in the future with real-life active cases and published research.”
Founded in 2018, the project has grown steadily. At any given time, between 30 and 40 students are involved, working directly on cases that span the country.
Dunn makes clear that voting rights in the United States are not static, they “ebb and flow, as we’ve seen throughout American history.” While constitutional and statutory protections exist at the federal and state levels, discriminatory practices persist, which makes enforcement essential.
“The Voting Rights Project is training the next generation of voting rights practitioners, whether it be lawyers, data scientists, or courtroom experts, to secure democracy in the future with real-life active cases and published research.”
The VRP addresses this reality by taking on cases nationwide — including in Texas, Florida and Georgia. While some states require heightened oversight, Dunn notes that California is not immune, pointing to instances in which counties, local governments, and school districts have engaged in vote dilution.
Central to much of this work is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark federal law which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Dunn discusses how this law operates in practice and how students in the project are trained to identify and prove violations under the Act.
“One of the key provisions that we teach in our course is what it takes to prove a Voting Rights Act claim,” he says. “And that is under attack throughout the country at a level that we’ve not seen in 30 or 40 years.”
The project currently represents Latino voters in Texas and Washington, Native voters in New Mexico and Montana, Asian American communities, and African American voters in multiple jurisdictions. A case in Galveston, Texas, Dunn notes, has had nationwide implications and is ultimately on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dunn is particularly emphatic about correcting a common misconception: that voting rights litigation is inherently partisan.
“The Voting Rights Project is here to protect everyone’s right to vote,” he says. “We’ve brought cases in communities where candidates of choice for the people we were protecting were Republicans. We’ve brought cases where they were Democrats.”
He stresses that voting rights laws are not about guaranteeing partisan outcomes or ensuring that demographic groups elect specific candidates. “A lot of people get confused that voting rights relate to your entitlement to have so many Democrats in office or so many Republicans,” Dunn says. “These laws don’t have any consideration for those things.”
Instead, the focus is on the individual voter. “What we do is focus on the interests of the individual voters and ensure that whatever the voters’ choices are—whether it’s to have a Black elected official or a white elected official, or Republican or Democrat—those choices are respected and counted,” he says. “That’s the fundamental right to vote.”
One of the VRP’s primary areas of engagement is redistricting. While voting is the act of registering and casting a ballot, geographical location also plays a critical role.
“We can give you the right to vote… we can count your vote… but if we draw you in a particular geography, we can make sure that you’re never actually able to elect your candidate of choice.”
The project analyzes congressional, state legislative, city council, and school district maps. Students examine district histories, racial demographics, voting patterns, and the map-drawing process itself. When discrimination is found, VRP begins with community advocacy, engages enforcement agencies, and files suit if necessary.
This combination of litigation, data analysis, and advocacy exemplifies the project’s interdisciplinary approach. While many participants are law students gaining courtroom experience, the project also includes social scientists, data scientists, and students from anthropology, history, and even medical school.
“One of the fantastic things about UCLA is the diversity of our students,” Dunn says—not only in background, but in talent and interests. “The neat thing about the Voting Rights Project is you can have varying interests and still gain a lot from the program—and you can provide a lot to the program.”
In a typical year, Dunn and his team average two to four trials. Weeks of preparation culminate in courtroom arguments shaped by months or even years of research, collaboration, and strategy. Beyond litigation, VRP conducts analytical projects such as dispersion plots to visually track voting patterns, studies on redistricting techniques, and other research critical to proving cases in court.
For Dunn, the mission is as much about the future as it is about responding to the present.
“American history shows that every generation has needed people on the front lines to defend our right to vote. What we’ve built here at UCLA Luskin is a center dedicated to training those people—it’s truly one of its kind in the United States.”
