Frank Langfitt for NPR:

In America, we encourage voting as a civic duty, but an organization with millions of members is taking that obligation a step further. It’s requiring members to vote — or potentially lose their membership and the financial benefits that come with it.

The organization is the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, which helps people get low-cost mortgages. NACA says it has 3.7 million members, including about 870,000 in the seven key swing states this election year.

“We’re not saying to people vote for a particular candidate,” says NACA CEO Bruce Marks. “We’re saying that there’s so much at stake in this election that you have to have your voice heard.”

Several legal scholars say they’ve never seen a policy like NACA’s before and aren’t sure if it violates the law.

“I think it’s troubling,” says professor Rick Hasen, who directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law….

Legal scholars say the organization’s new membership policy raises questions. Justin Levitt, who served in the Biden White House as senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights, says a part of the U.S. criminal code makes it illegal to spend money to prompt someone to vote or to withhold their vote or to vote for a particular candidate. Levitt thinks that law, which has been around for nearly a century, could apply to NACA’s new policy.

Of course, NACA isn’t paying people to vote. But Levitt notes that removing someone as a member could effectively take away their opportunity for a low-cost mortgage….