Abstract
Imagine that in the weeks leading up to a presidential election, the boss of a factory that primarily employs minority workers credibly and repeatedly warns the rank-and-file, “If any of you vote in this upcoming election, we will make sure that you are fired.” If delivered and understood with serious intent, this statement would clearly violate the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”), which states that “[n]o person . . . shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote . . . .” Remarkably, however, such a statement might be protected by the First Amendment under a literal reading of the Supreme Court’s definition of the “true threats” exception to First Amendment immunity, as set forth in Virginia v. Black. In that case, the Court seemed to limit the definition of punishable true threats, for First Amendment purposes, to serious threats of death or unlawful violence. In doing so, the Court implicitly forbade the government from punishing speech that threatened lesser harms (such as the economic harm that would come from losing a job).
Recommended Citation
Taylor Todd,
True Threats to First Amendment Protections in the Age of Voter Disinformation,
89 Mo. L. Rev.
(2025)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol89/iss4/12
