The Freedom to Vote Act must pass to expand and protect the right to vote. The bill is a more moderate version of the For the People Act killed by a Republican filibuster in June but will nonetheless increase access to the ballot box, improve election integrity and make our democracy more representative.
The Freedom to Vote Act helps assist people in both claiming and reclaiming their right to vote. The first is that the bill includes automatic voter registration through each state’s department of motor vehicles and access in all states to online voter registration. Second, the bill also restores voting rights to felons who have served their sentences: a fair correction to unjust state laws barring felons from full reentry into society even after they have paid their debt to society.
The law also increases opportunities for people to vote by expanding the amount of time people have to do so by having a mandatory two weeks of early voting — including two weekends — and making election day a public holiday. The bill also allows all eligible voters to vote by mail without excuses and improves election mail delivery and ballot drop-box availability.
The act also includes provisions that some Republicans may like. For example, rather than banning photo ID requirements for voting, the Freedom to Vote Act makes voting ID requirements more flexible and allows more forms of identification — including some digital ones — to be used in the states with voter identification laws. However, for states without voter identification laws, no new requirement would be instituted.
I am suspicious of voter identification laws because of how some voter identification laws have been used to suppress the votes of racial minorities. However, I believe the Freedom to Vote Act will have fair standards in place to make sure any identification requirement will not be too burdensome to any American.
The bill comprehensively deals with election integrity by requiring so-called dark money groups to disclose donors, as such groups are currently not required to disclose them. Additionally, the law would combat partisan gerrymandering by creating federal standards for redistricting and judicial remedies to ensure districts are fairly drawn.
Partisan gerrymandering is a cancer on American democracy and sadly is practiced by Democrats and Republicans, though Republicans gerrymander more frequently and to greater effect. The Freedom to Vote Act remedies that issue. It cleans up the Supreme Court ruling in the 2019 “Rucho v. Common Cause,” in which a 5-4 conservative majority said they had no authority to stop partisan gerrymandering, a ruling that just happened to favor Republicans.
All the above items are not close to the entire proposal, which includes more about regulating voter roll purges, requirements for federal campaigns to report certain foreign contacts, etc. The act is solid, substantive and will make America a more voter-friendly and representative democracy.
The act now has the critical support of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D), and the only thing standing in the way of the bill’s passage is a Republican filibuster. Manchin is intent on getting Republican votes, which this bill should get. However, because the law would likely weaken Republicans’ political fortunes, I would be surprised if the ten Republican senators necessary to break the filibuster voted in favor of the bill.
I think Manchin has to break the filibuster for this one case. I understand why he is hesitant to do away with the filibuster, especially considering how much the senate will increasingly favor Republicans in the years to come with the increasing power of rural voters.
However, Republican-engineered voter suppression is the one thing that the people cannot vote out of office. All other Republican policies can be retaliated against at the ballot box. A fair election becomes a fantasy when access to the ballot box becomes restricted and the playing field is tilted so much in favor of one side.
The Freedom to Vote Act is already a compromise, albeit a good one. Now is not the time to compromise or shrug your shoulders and choose the filibuster over the franchise.
Democrats, including Manchin, must make an exception and kill the filibuster for at least this voting rights bill. The right to vote is perhaps our most sacred right in America, the right which secures all the others. Protecting the right to vote is more critical than any senate rule, no matter how respected.
