President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Sunday urging federal agencies to expand access to voting as part of his government’s efforts “to promote and defend the voting rights of all Americans who have a legal right to participate in elections” .
“It is the responsibility of the federal government to expand access and education on voter registration and electoral information, and to combat disinformation, in order to allow all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy,” the order said.
Biden announced the order in virtual comments made before the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast, which commemorates the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where black protesters fighting for access to the polls were beaten by the police along your march.
The order comes days after the House passed HR1, a broad package of electoral and ethical reforms that Biden said he would sanction if passed in the Senate. This also occurs when Republican legislatures across the country seek to enact more restrictive electoral measures after the defeat of former President Donald Trump.
In his comments on Sunday, Biden called these Republican efforts “a total attack on the right to vote”.
“During the current legislative session, elected officials in 43 states have already submitted more than 250 bills to make it difficult for Americans to vote,” he said. “We cannot let them succeed.”
Biden called HR1 “a legislative framework that is urgently needed to protect the right to vote, the integrity of our elections and to repair and strengthen our democracy”.
“I hope the Senate will do its job so that I can sanction this,” he continued. “I also urge Congress to fully restore the Voting Rights Act, named after John Lewis.”
“Let the people vote,” he added.
Biden’s action calls on federal agencies to “consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and obtain information about the electoral process and participate in it” by facilitating the vote of federal officials, providing recommendations on how to “expand policy of the federal government to give employees free time to vote in federal, state, local, tribal and territorial elections “and increase voting access for voters with disabilities, Native Americans, active duty soldiers, Americans abroad and eligible federal prisoners.
HR1 remains the Democrats’ greatest hope for ensuring greater protection for voters, however, and, as the official said, the Biden government has no jurisdiction to overturn restrictive electoral measures put in place at the state level.
