Members of Congress take an oath to protect our country from all threats, foreign and domestic. Today, we face a domestic threat from those seeking to gain and hold power by suppressing votes and nullifying election results. Congress must combat this threat by ensuring equal and unfettered access to the ballot box while ensuring an accurate vote count.
Congressman Clyburn introduced legislation to rename the Voting Rights Advancement Act in honor of his dear friend, Congressman John R. Lewis, who passed away in 2021. This legislation was combined with the Freedom to Vote Act to create the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. This legislation would:
- Improve Voter Access and Election Administration
- Establish Election Day as a federal holiday.
- Enact an automatic voter registration through each state’s motor vehicle agency and ensure online voter registration.
- Unify early voting processes for federal elections.
- Establish minimum standards for vote by mail and drop boxes.
- Restore the right to vote in federal elections for people who have served time for a felony conviction after being released from prison.
- Strengthen Election Integrity
- Prevent state election subversion through federal protections for nonpartisan state and local election officials.
- Strengthen protections for federal election records.
- Require states to use voter-verified paper ballots, reliable audits, and provide grants for new and more secure voting systems.
- Put in place election vendor cybersecurity standards.
- Establish a duty to report foreign election interference.
- Improve Civic Participation and Empowerment
- Standardize congressional redistricting and ban partisan gerrymandering.
- Combat secret money in elections by requiring greater transparency in election spending and political ad disclosures.
- Improve the ability of the Federal Election Commission to carry out oversight and enforcement responsibilities.
- Create a state election assistance and innovation fund.
- Restore and Update the Voting Rights Act
- Require preclearance for states that have engaged in 15 or more voting violations within the last 25 years and for localities that engaged in 3 or more violations in the last 25 years.
- Develop a nationwide “practice-based preclearance trigger” to jurisdictions that propose changes to voter ID requirements, reductions in polling locations and hours, and more.
- Eliminate the heightened standard for challenging voter discrimination to ensure voting dilution and denial claims can be fairly challenged if discriminatory.
- Establish provisions that make it easier to obtain preliminary injunctions and allow challenges to discriminatory voting rule changes.
Congressman Clyburn supports an exception to the Senate filibuster for constitutional rights in order to enact the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act into law to protect our democracy.