Joaquin Guadalupe Avila (June 23, 1948 – March 9, 2018) was an American voting rights attorney and activist. Avila spent more than two decades using the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 to increase election fairness for minority voters. But as several court precedents weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, Avila conceived of state voting rights acts as a way to again strengthen minority voting rights. Thus Avila crafted the California Voting Rights Act that was enacted in 2001.