Democrats say the bill will help stifle voter suppression attempts, while Republicans have cast the bill as unwanted federal interference in states’ authority to conduct their own elections.
A new executive order from President Joe Biden directs federal agencies to take a series of steps to promote voting access, a move that comes as congressional Democrats press for a sweeping voting and elections bill to counter efforts to restrict voting access. His plan was being announced during a recorded address on the 56th commemoration of “Bloody Sunday,” the 1965 incident in which some 600 civil rights activists were viciously beaten by state troopers as they tried to march for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. “Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have it counted,” Biden says in his prepared remarks to Sunday’s Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast. “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.” Biden’s order includes several modest provisions. It directs federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information, calls on the heads of federal agencies to come up with plans to give federal employees time off to vote or volunteer as nonpartisan poll workers, and pushes an overhaul of the government’s Vote.
