The main legislative priority for House Democrats – the HR 1 For the People Act of 2021 – is 791 pages of major electoral change.
The legislation – a list of policy desires that advocates of voting rights have urged lawmakers to adopt for years – rethinks the entire voting process: how people register to vote, how ballots are made and how states conduct elections. elections. The goal is to improve access, especially for black voters.
The project would also create public funding systems for campaigns and rules of ethics for candidates.
“This is the next major civil rights bill,” said Elizabeth Hira, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, who helped draft the bill in her previous work at the House of Representatives.
Proponents of voting rights say the legislation can help prevent restrictive and gerrymandering electoral laws.
Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said HR 1 would “frustrate” almost all of the more than 200 restrictive voting proposals her group has identified in 43 states.
The bill has little chance in the Senate under its current rules: although Democrats have a small majority, at least 10 Republican votes would be needed to pass it.
Republicans argue that the legislation would federalize the electoral administration and have worked to mobilize supporters against it.
Here’s what the account would do:
Make registration easy (and keep up to date)
The bill aims to facilitate entry and permanence on the electoral registration lists.
HR 1 would require states to offer online electoral registration systems – which 40 states and Washington, DC already allow – and electoral registration on the same day during federal elections. It would also require local authorities to automatically register qualified voters.
Eighteen states already have some form of automatic registration, and national implementation could register 50 million new voters, according to the Brennan Center.
The bill would also limit how states can eliminate voter lists and require the United States postal service to facilitate voter registration updates when people fill out change of address forms.
The bill would require states to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register when they get their driver’s licenses so they can vote when they turn 18.
“It really matters, because Generation Z and Generation Y collectively are the largest electoral bloc. They just overtook boomers in voting power,” said Hira.
Make it easy to vote
Several measures of the project aim to make voting easier and more agile.
The bill would require states to allow all voters the option to vote by mail and would require 15 consecutive days of early voting in person for at least 10 hours a day.
The bill would prevent state legislators who are already trying to put more, not less, restrictions on postal voting.
States would be required to notify voters seven days before the election if their polling places have changed.
The bill also seeks to force states to deal with long waiting times on election day, requiring the allocation of sufficient resources to ensure that voters do not wait more than 30 minutes.
Deprive millions of former criminals
The bill would restore voting rights for criminals who have served their prison sentences.
Some states prohibit citizens with felony convictions from voting for a period of time, such as during probation.
The provision could restore voting rights to millions. The Sentencing Project, a group that advocates criminal justice reforms, estimated in 2020 that 5.2 million Americans were deprived of their rights for criminal convictions. At least 2.2 million of them served their sentences in full and would be emancipated, as well as those who served sentences outside prison, such as probation.
An estimated 900,000 of these marginalized ex-offenders live in Florida, the group notes.
“The biggest single impact is in Florida, where voters overwhelmingly voted for a similar policy that was thwarted by legislation,” said Weiser, pointing to an electoral measure passed in 2018, only to be effectively overturned by state lawmakers.
End of gerrymandering
The bill would ban district maps that “unduly” favor either party, as measured by “scientifically accepted measures of party justice”. The bill does not indicate a specific formula; several have been used in the past.
Both gerrymander parties, but in 2010, Republicans controlled more state governments and more redistricting processes.
Technological advances in the past two decades have made gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district boundaries that benefit one party over another, incredibly effective. Critics say it makes it very easy for politicians to choose their voters, when it should be the other way around.
“It can be transformative,” said redistricting expert Michael Li, a senior advisor at the Brennan Center. “Otherwise, you will see maps manipulated so that the outcome is predetermined.”
Several states have adopted independent redistricting commissions on their own, but most states still allow their legislatures to draw the maps.
Because of the 2020 census, all states are expected to redraw their maps next year. Republicans control the process in more states, and Democrats see the change in rules as a way to more evenly distribute control of the process.
Strengthen electoral cybersecurity
The bill would establish a series of parameters to improve electoral security: standards for election vendors, rules for reporting potential cyber attacks to federal authorities, and requirements for states to protect electoral registration databases from cyber attacks.
The bill would also create a security rewards program, which would allow security analysts to be paid to find security holes in the electoral system.
Create public funding (to eliminate large donors)
The bill would create a public funding system for Congressional candidates that would combine donations under $ 200 with six times the funding if candidates agreed to rules that would include not accepting donations over $ 1,000.
Under the proposed system, donations of $ 100 would provide applicants with an additional $ 600 in public funds, totaling $ 700.
Applicants would be required to disclose all contributions and return unspent public funds in excess of $ 100,000.
The project also seeks to renew the public funding system for presidential disputes, which most candidates from major parties used until 2008, when Barack Obama opted out of the system. The bill would increase public value for small donations, prevent applicants from accepting donations in excess of $ 1,000, and update the system’s rules and restrictions.
The bill would also test a voucher program in three states that would allow voters to allocate $ 25 to the candidate of their choice; the system is based on a similar program in Seattle.