President Biden is set to sign an executive order to overhaul “voting access,” including provisions to bolster rights for prisoners, on the anniversary of the Selma, Alabama, civil rights demonstration.
The president’s Sunday order will “provide voting access and education” to federal inmates, create a “steering group” for Native American voting rights with members from several government agencies and direct the Department of Commerce to ensure ballot registration documents are easily accessible to those with disabilities. Biden’s plan added that “vote-by-mail ballot applications” will be expanded, the government website, Vote.gov, will be modernized and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 will be revamped to allow federal agencies to have a more active role in state voter registration efforts.
“As the President has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident,” the administration wrote in a statement. “We have to defend, strengthen, and renew it. Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended.”
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Biden is expected to announce the order at the Martin and Coretta Scott King Unity Breakfast, commemorating “Bloody Sunday,” the march in Selma where black protesters were confronted and beaten by police officers during a demonstration for expanded poll access. The president noted that former Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who died in July 2020, was present during the 1965 violence.
“Today, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, I am signing an executive order to make it easier for eligible voters to register to vote and improve access to voting,” Biden is expected to say in prepared video remarks. “Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have that vote counted. If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.”
“The legacy of the march in Selma is that while nothing can stop a free people from exercising their most sacred power as a citizen, there are those who will do everything they can to take that power away,” the remarks continue.
Biden’s order follows the House’s passage of H.R. 1, dubbed the For the People Act, which would expand mail-in voting, mandate same-day voter registration, and foster a nationwide registry. The bill has drawn ire from conservative groups who referred to the legislation as “dangerous” and likely to “further undermine faith” in elections.
“Election reform is a national imperative, but under our Constitution, election reform must be undertaken at the state level,” former Vice President Mike Pence wrote in an op-ed Wednesday. “Our Founders limited Congress’ role in conducting our elections for good reason: They wanted elections to be administered closest to the people, free from undue influence of the national government.”
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He continued: “While legislators in many states have begun work on election reform to restore public confidence in state elections, unfortunately, congressional Democrats have chosen to sweep those valid concerns and reforms aside and to push forward a brazen attempt to nationalize elections in blatant disregard of the US Constitution.”
