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Here is the next big legislative priority in Congress that looks to provide uniform minimum standard voting rights across the states.
https://thebulwark.com/hr1-for-dummies/
With the latest COVID relief package passed, H.R. 1—the For the People Act—becomes the most salient pending piece of legislation. Our democracy is on borrowed time: Just two months ago America weathered a violent attempt to overthrow a free and fair election. One of our two major political parties is now explicitly seeking to lower the number of votes cast in future elections. And if we don’t take decisive action now to preserve our democracy, we’ll lose it. H.R. 1 is supposed to be a bulwark against these anti-democratic threats. It has taken on a partisan tinge, but it’s neither a progressive nor partisan bill—it’s a pro-democracy bill that should appeal to Americans of all political backgrounds.
So before the next stage of the debate begins in earnest, let’s open the hood and take a look at what’s actually in the bill.
Broadly speaking, H.R. 1 covers three major areas: voting and elections, campaign finance, and ethics.
First, it would:
Second, H.R. 1 would increase the transparency of spending on elections and campaign ads and strengthen protections against foreign interference in our campaigns.
Third is ethics: Requiring increased disclosure of lobbying activities, and putting into law ethical guidelines preventing conflicts of interest by staff, appointees, members of Congress, and even presidents.
So those are the broad strokes of what the bill aims to do. Here’s a bit more detail on the mechanisms it proposes.
Preventing Voter Suppression and Protecting Elections (Titles I–III)
Currently, each state sets its own procedures for how its residents register and cast their vote. The For the People Act creates minimum standards that will apply to each state, for how voters register and cast their ballots, while still empowering states to run their own elections.
Consider voter registration. H.R. 1 takes voter registration reforms that have proven successful across dozens of states over multiple election cycles, and mandates them nationally: It requires states to allow online and same-day voter registration and strengthens protections against efforts to hinder, deceive, or intimidate voters from registering or casting their ballots.
As another example, H.R. 1 restores the right to vote for all felons who have served their sentences and been released from prison. These 5 million currently disenfranchised voters are disproportionately people of color.
There’s historic precedent at work here: kicking blacks off the voter rolls for a criminal conviction was such an effective tool of the Jim Crow South that when the Reconstruction Congress readmitted Confederate states to the Union, it limited which felonies could be used to suspend a person’s ability to vote—a limitation which has gone tragically unenforced. A century later, states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee have used this same principle to disenfranchise more than 8 percent of their voting-age populations. The For the People Act would end the seesaws of these state-by-state laws and impose a fair minimum standard.
The For the People Act would also standardize how a voter can be removed from the rolls. Some states remove voters because they skipped voting in an election a while back or failed to return a piece of mail. And some campaigns abuse these rules to intentionally push voters (namely, ones likely to vote for their opponents) off the rolls.
While existing law places some limits on the use of racially discriminatory voter purges, enforcement of these protections is inconsistent (at best). The act would prohibit the use of non-forwardable mail that has been returned as a basis for kicking someone off the voting rolls. It also prevents voters from being kicked off the rolls if they fail to vote in an election, and requires people who are not election officials to swear that they have a good faith factual basis if they decide to challenge a citizen’s voter registration.
In terms of casting the ballot after a voter is registered, H.R. 1 would expand procedures that make it easier to vote. It expands vote-by-mail—which, contrary to many partisan arguments, does not overall boost turnout of one party over another. The bill would also allow curbside voting (so that older people and people with disabilities can vote from their vehicle) and pre-paying the postage on mail-in ballots so a citizen doesn’t miss out on casting their vote just because they could not afford a stamp.
The act also seeks to reduce wait times at the polls. Long wait times can impose undue hardships on voters—making voting physically hard on the elderly, for instance, or economically hard for hourly workers without childcare. A bipartisan commission recommends a 30-minute maximum wait time. But in the United States, not only do many voters wait longer than an hour and a half, lines are longer at polling places in predominantly black neighborhoods—regardless of whether that neighborhood is in a Democratic- or Republican-controlled state.
The For the People Act includes several provisions that would reduce wait times, including setting minimum hours and days for early voting availability, and funding states’ recruitment and training of more poll workers so that they can open more polling locations.
H.R. 1 also standardizes vote-by-mail procedures to reduce confusion that results in uncounted ballots. In 2020, many voters were left waiting for absentee ballots that either came too late or never arrived at all. Those who did get their ballots were often worried about their ballot arriving back at the board of elections in time to be counted. The act requires states to track and confirm the receipt of absentee ballots and make it easier for people to return ballots through secure dropboxes.
H.R. 1 also forbids any official from overseeing an election in which they, or a family member, are a candidate. For example: In November 2018, Brian Kemp campaigned to become governor of Georgia at the same time that he was overseeing the election as Georgia’s secretary of state. He resigned in response to a lawsuit (disclaimer: our organization filed it) arguing that that refereeing and running in the same election violates the basic constitutional principle that a person may not be a judge in their own case. H.R. 1 would formalize this rule.
Perhaps most critically, H.R. 1 would also end the political parties’ control over drawing congressional districts—a process which is abused across the country, by both Democrats and Republicans, and which herds tens of millions of Americans into bizarre geographic constructions for the sole purpose of being able to win more races with same number of votes.
Instead, H.R. 1 requires states to use non-partisan redistricting commissions to draw these lines. In the face of the Supreme Court’s decision in 2019 not to stand in the way of extreme partisan redistricting, this provision would help make a state’s representation more proportional to the actual outcome of elections.
https://thebulwark.com/hr1-for-dummies/
With the latest COVID relief package passed, H.R. 1—the For the People Act—becomes the most salient pending piece of legislation. Our democracy is on borrowed time: Just two months ago America weathered a violent attempt to overthrow a free and fair election. One of our two major political parties is now explicitly seeking to lower the number of votes cast in future elections. And if we don’t take decisive action now to preserve our democracy, we’ll lose it. H.R. 1 is supposed to be a bulwark against these anti-democratic threats. It has taken on a partisan tinge, but it’s neither a progressive nor partisan bill—it’s a pro-democracy bill that should appeal to Americans of all political backgrounds.
So before the next stage of the debate begins in earnest, let’s open the hood and take a look at what’s actually in the bill.
Broadly speaking, H.R. 1 covers three major areas: voting and elections, campaign finance, and ethics.
First, it would:
- reduce barriers that keep eligible citizens from registering to vote and then casting their vote;
- set minimum, uniform standards for elections; and
- provide funding to increase the security of our elections.
Second, H.R. 1 would increase the transparency of spending on elections and campaign ads and strengthen protections against foreign interference in our campaigns.
Third is ethics: Requiring increased disclosure of lobbying activities, and putting into law ethical guidelines preventing conflicts of interest by staff, appointees, members of Congress, and even presidents.
So those are the broad strokes of what the bill aims to do. Here’s a bit more detail on the mechanisms it proposes.
Preventing Voter Suppression and Protecting Elections (Titles I–III)
Currently, each state sets its own procedures for how its residents register and cast their vote. The For the People Act creates minimum standards that will apply to each state, for how voters register and cast their ballots, while still empowering states to run their own elections.
Consider voter registration. H.R. 1 takes voter registration reforms that have proven successful across dozens of states over multiple election cycles, and mandates them nationally: It requires states to allow online and same-day voter registration and strengthens protections against efforts to hinder, deceive, or intimidate voters from registering or casting their ballots.
As another example, H.R. 1 restores the right to vote for all felons who have served their sentences and been released from prison. These 5 million currently disenfranchised voters are disproportionately people of color.
There’s historic precedent at work here: kicking blacks off the voter rolls for a criminal conviction was such an effective tool of the Jim Crow South that when the Reconstruction Congress readmitted Confederate states to the Union, it limited which felonies could be used to suspend a person’s ability to vote—a limitation which has gone tragically unenforced. A century later, states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee have used this same principle to disenfranchise more than 8 percent of their voting-age populations. The For the People Act would end the seesaws of these state-by-state laws and impose a fair minimum standard.
The For the People Act would also standardize how a voter can be removed from the rolls. Some states remove voters because they skipped voting in an election a while back or failed to return a piece of mail. And some campaigns abuse these rules to intentionally push voters (namely, ones likely to vote for their opponents) off the rolls.
While existing law places some limits on the use of racially discriminatory voter purges, enforcement of these protections is inconsistent (at best). The act would prohibit the use of non-forwardable mail that has been returned as a basis for kicking someone off the voting rolls. It also prevents voters from being kicked off the rolls if they fail to vote in an election, and requires people who are not election officials to swear that they have a good faith factual basis if they decide to challenge a citizen’s voter registration.
In terms of casting the ballot after a voter is registered, H.R. 1 would expand procedures that make it easier to vote. It expands vote-by-mail—which, contrary to many partisan arguments, does not overall boost turnout of one party over another. The bill would also allow curbside voting (so that older people and people with disabilities can vote from their vehicle) and pre-paying the postage on mail-in ballots so a citizen doesn’t miss out on casting their vote just because they could not afford a stamp.
The act also seeks to reduce wait times at the polls. Long wait times can impose undue hardships on voters—making voting physically hard on the elderly, for instance, or economically hard for hourly workers without childcare. A bipartisan commission recommends a 30-minute maximum wait time. But in the United States, not only do many voters wait longer than an hour and a half, lines are longer at polling places in predominantly black neighborhoods—regardless of whether that neighborhood is in a Democratic- or Republican-controlled state.
The For the People Act includes several provisions that would reduce wait times, including setting minimum hours and days for early voting availability, and funding states’ recruitment and training of more poll workers so that they can open more polling locations.
H.R. 1 also standardizes vote-by-mail procedures to reduce confusion that results in uncounted ballots. In 2020, many voters were left waiting for absentee ballots that either came too late or never arrived at all. Those who did get their ballots were often worried about their ballot arriving back at the board of elections in time to be counted. The act requires states to track and confirm the receipt of absentee ballots and make it easier for people to return ballots through secure dropboxes.
H.R. 1 also forbids any official from overseeing an election in which they, or a family member, are a candidate. For example: In November 2018, Brian Kemp campaigned to become governor of Georgia at the same time that he was overseeing the election as Georgia’s secretary of state. He resigned in response to a lawsuit (disclaimer: our organization filed it) arguing that that refereeing and running in the same election violates the basic constitutional principle that a person may not be a judge in their own case. H.R. 1 would formalize this rule.
Perhaps most critically, H.R. 1 would also end the political parties’ control over drawing congressional districts—a process which is abused across the country, by both Democrats and Republicans, and which herds tens of millions of Americans into bizarre geographic constructions for the sole purpose of being able to win more races with same number of votes.
Instead, H.R. 1 requires states to use non-partisan redistricting commissions to draw these lines. In the face of the Supreme Court’s decision in 2019 not to stand in the way of extreme partisan redistricting, this provision would help make a state’s representation more proportional to the actual outcome of elections.
