The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans through litigation, advocacy, and community education. Spring internships are available for college, graduate, and law students in AALDEF’s Voting Rights Program.

In prior elections, Asian Americans faced a series of barriers in exercising their right to vote; for example, ballots have been mistranslated listing Democratic candidates as Republicans and vice versa, lack of interpreters, denial of language assistance, rude and hostile poll workers. AALDEF’s Voting Rights Program aims to enhance the political participation of Asian Americans and guard against anti-Asian voter discrimination.

Voting Rights Interns work on the following:

• Advocate for full compliance with the Voting Rights Act and federal Constitution, by analyzing election monitoring reports. The Voting Rights Act mandates Chinese and Korean language voting assistance and forbids anti-Asian voter discrimination. This includes legal research and writing, fact pattern development, and working with clients and witnesses for possible litigation.

• Monitoring the Presidential Primary Elections in NY, NJ, MA, PA, MD and VA to document the use of bilingual ballots.

• Assess local elections compliance with settlements reached in voting rights lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and other states.

• Registering new voters after citizenship swearing-in ceremonies.

• Conduct research and advocacy on local, state and federal election reform proposals.

Description of Spring Internships:

Supervision: Interns are supervised by attorneys through regular meetings and trainings.

Compensation: These internships are not paid positions, but academic credit can be arranged.

Hours: Interns work anywhere between 12 to 25 hours per week in the office.

Duration: Spring internships usually follows the spring semester, commencing with the start of classes (end of January) to the first or second week of May.

To Apply: Bilingual ability is helpful but not required. Students with language ability in Korean, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, or Chinese are especially welcome to apply and languages (if any) should be stated in the resume.

Applicants should also state the number of hours they can work per week and a possible schedule.

Send a resume and cover letter to:

Voting Rights Spring Intern Search
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
99 Hudson Street, 12th floor
New York, New York 10013-2815
Fax: 212-966-4303 Email: info@aaldef.org

For more information, contact Glenn D. Magpantay at 212-966-5932, ext. 206 or gmagpantay@aaldef.org.