For the People Act

The Freedom to Vote Act, originally called the For the People Act, introduced as H.R. 1, is a bill in the United States Congress intended to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, ban partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.

The act was originally introduced by John Sarbanes in 2019, on behalf of the newly elected Democratic majority in the United States House of Representatives as the first official legislation of the 116th United States Congress. The House passed the bill on March 8, by a party-line vote of 234–193. The bill was viewed as a "signature piece of legislation" from the Democratic House majority. After the House passed the bill, it was blocked from receiving a vote by the then Republican-controlled Senate, under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In 2021, in the 117th Congress, congressional Democrats reintroduced the act as H.R. 1 and S. 1. On March 3, 2021, the bill passed the House of Representatives on a near party-line vote of 220–210, advancing to the Senate, which was split 50–50 between Democrats and Republicans (with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to bring it to the floor for a vote. On June 22, 2021, a vote on the bill was held in the Senate. It received unified support from the Democratic caucus, but Senate Republicans blocked the bill with a filibuster, as it lacked the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture after a party-line vote. Some Senate Democrats expressed support for abolishing the filibuster for the bill, but others in their caucus remained opposed or expressed reservations about doing so, including Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The bill would require states to offer same-day voter registration for federal elections and permit voters to make changes to their registration at the polls. It would require states to hold early voting for at least two weeks and would establish automatic voter registration for individuals to be eligible to vote in elections for federal office in the state. Under the automatic voter registration provision, eligible citizens who provide information to state agencies (including state departments of motor vehicles or public universities) would be automatically registered to vote unless they opt out of doing so. The bill would also expand opportunities to vote by mail and would make Election Day a federal holiday. The bill would require states to offer online voter registration, which has already been adopted in 39 states and the District of Columbia; under the bill, states would be required to establish a system to allow applications to be electronically completed, submitted, and received by election officials, and to allow registered voters to electronically update their voter registration information. The bill would establish criminal penalties for persons who "corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from registering to vote" and for voter deception or intimidation (the bill would specifically "prohibit knowing and intentional communication of false and misleading information – including about the time, place, or manner of elections, public endorsements, and the rules governing voter eligibility and voter registration – made with the intent of preventing eligible voters from casting ballots"). The bill would instruct the Election Assistance Commission to adopt recommendations for states on the prevention of interference with voter registration.

The bill would also authorize 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote in advance of their becoming 18. A 2019 proposal by Representative Ayanna Pressley to amend the bill to actually allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote did not succeed. The bill would also prohibit the practice of voter caging and restrict the practicing of voter-roll purges by limiting states' ability to remove registered voters from the rolls and setting conditions for when they could do so. Specifically, the bill would require states to obtain certain information before removing voters from the rolls, and would prohibit voter purges from taking place less than six months before an election. The bill prohibits any person from communicating "materially false" claims meant to prevent others from voting 60 days before an election and compels the attorney general to correct such misinformation. The bill also requires elections officials to timely notify any voter tagged for removal from the rolls and give them an opportunity to contest the removal or seek reinstatement of their registration. It also restores voting rights to felons who complete prison terms.

The bill contains various provisions to promote voting access for people with disabilities and provisions to strengthen the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) by providing additional protections for military and overseas voters. To ensure UOCAVA compliance, the bill would "require all states ... to send uniformed service and overseas voters' ballots at least 45 days before a federal election (provided a request was received at least 45 days before the election); require states to use and pay for express delivery and return of ballots if they fail to send ballots to uniformed and overseas voters by that deadline; [and] extend the guarantee of state residency for voting purposes to all spouses and dependents of absent servicemembers (current law extends the guarantee of residency only to servicemembers themselves)." The bill would create a cause of action allowing the attorney general or a private party to sue if a state violates these provisions, and would require states to send reports to Congress documenting "the availability of absentee balloting for servicemembers and overseas voters, how many ballots were transmitted, and how many were returned."

The bill would also create a Congressional task force on voting rights in American territories.

The bill contains election security provisions, including a voter verified paper ballot provision mandating the use of paper ballots that can be marked by voters either by hand or with a ballot marking device and inspected by the voter to allow any errors to be corrected before the ballot is cast. The bill would also require state officials to preserve paper ballots for recounts or audits, and to conduct a hand count of ballots for recounts and audits. The bill would require the voting machines used in all federal elections to be manufactured in the U.S.