{"id":4937,"date":"2023-04-01T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=4937"},"modified":"2023-03-28T14:53:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T14:53:54","slug":"coalition-takes-biden-administration-to-task-for-falling-short-on-voting-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=4937","title":{"rendered":"Coalition Takes Biden Administration to Task for Falling Short on Voting Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Mark Hedin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A coalition of more than 100 civil rights and advocacy organizations is accusing the Biden administration of falling short on its \u201cvisionary\u201d commitment to step up voter registration and that the failure to shore up voting rights is disproportionately hurting non-white voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an early March letter<\/a> to President Biden and 10 federal agencies, the coalition cited Census data showing wide discrepancies in voter registration between white voters and voters of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the data, 77% of eligible voters who are white are registered to vote. That compares to just 69% among African American eligible voters, and 64% for Asian Americans, 63% among Native Americans and 61% among Latinos. And in the last presidential election, 63 million people otherwise eligible to vote were not registered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive Order 14019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within weeks of taking office and on the anniversary of the 1965 historic \u201cBloody Sunday\u201d march for voting rights through Selma, Alabama, Biden issued executive order 14019, \u201cPromoting Access to Voting<\/a>.\u201d The move was intended to expand voter registration opportunities in federal agency programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, at a March 2 press briefing, members of the coalition offered a new report, \u201cStrengthening Democracy: A Progress Report on Federal Agency Action to Promote Access to Voting<\/a>,\u201d assessing the work of 10 federal agencies in implementing Biden\u2019s order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three are \u201con the right track,\u201d the report found, but \u201cmost have either made minimal progress on their initial strong commitments or have left important opportunities on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were they to \u201cintegrate a high-quality voter registration opportunity for the people they serve,\u201d said Jesselyn McCurdy, of the Leadership Conference, those agencies \u201ccould collectively generate an additional 3.5 million voter registration applications per year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She continued, \u201cWhile state after state imposes more barriers to the ballot, a divided Congress gives us little hope for restoring and strengthening the voting rights we so desperately need\u2026 Not since the Jim Crow era have we seen such opposition to freely casting and accurately counting our ballots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy added that \u201cwith legislation stalled for the foreseeable future, we are looking to the Biden-Harris administration to do everything within their executive power to protect the right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Registering Native American voters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jacqueline De Leon of the Native American Rights Fund noted Native American voters are \u201cuniquely situated to benefit from this executive order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although \u201cNative Americans do not regularly interact with state agencies, such as the DMV, where many Americans are provided with the most meaningful registration opportunity,\u201d she said, the situation is different when it comes to federal agencies \u201cin a government-to-government capacity and in fulfillment of their treaty rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of the Interior was one of just three agencies of the 10 covered in the report deemed \u201con the right track\u201d for providing high-quality voter registration services at two universities it operates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the other end of the spectrum, Indian Health Services was rated \u201cfalling behind\u201d for showing \u201cno signs of follow-through\u201d on its initial commitment to offer registration to its clients: \u201c2.5 million of the most underserved Native Americans yearly,\u201d De Leon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Leon commended the Department of Veteran Affairs\u2019 pilot programs in Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania and its nonpartisan information about registration and elections on its website. Treasury, by boosting voter registration access at IRS tax preparation clinics and training staff in the process, also got an \u201con the right track\u201d designation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting eligible voters where they\u2019re at<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the single most impactful actions that the Biden administration can take under this executive order,\u201d said Laura Williamson, of Demos, is for the Department of Health and Human Services to improve the voter registration element of its website healthcare.gov. Millions of people use the website annually, she said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For these people to be able to vote, she said, \u201cis integral to the agency\u2019s mission. HHS itself has found that voting is a social determinant of health.\u201d Although HHS initially vowed to integrate voter registration into its site, Williamson said, \u201cthat was well over a year ago and it hasn\u2019t happened. It must.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along similar lines and \u201ccritical to the entire executive order,\u201d she said, is the General Services Administration\u2019s vote.gov<\/a> website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the GSA being specifically singled out in the executive order to modernize and improve the site, which many other agencies use in their voter registration efforts, \u201cunfortunately, it\u2019s just not all that user-friendly, or fully accessible to voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Justice Department\u2019s Marshal Service, which oversees people in federal pretrial custody, and Bureau of Prisons have both made \u201cmodest initial efforts\u201d to ensure that eligible people in their custody have access to registration and voting, Williamson said, \u201cbut both agencies have more work to do to meet the mandate. Voting is a right, not a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Ao Minnis, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, echoed De Leon\u2019s comments about Indian Health Services, one of three agencies deemed \u201cfalling behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is the Department of Education, which, besides not following through on modest commitments made in response to Biden\u2019s order, should add voter registration information to its FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process, the report suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2020-2021 cycle, FAFSA had 18 million student applicants, including 84% of all black students, 74% of Latino students and 68% of Asian American ones \u2013 \u201cmany of whom are young people not registered to vote,\u201d Minnis noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the report estimates that another 60,000 voter registrations could be added annually through the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is unique among federal agencies, Minnis pointed out, in its routine interactions with people who by nature of becoming new citizens are both eligible to vote and unregistered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo close out,\u201d said Adam Lioz, of the Legal Defense Fund, \u201cwe need to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act, and we expect the administration\u2019s strong voice in that fight. We appreciate the progress agencies have made and we implore the administration to finish the job on a clear and urgent timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mark Hedin A coalition of more than 100 civil rights and advocacy organizations is accusing the Biden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,24,48],"tags":[66,85],"class_list":["post-4937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-online-newspaper","category-regular-column","category-social-justice","tag-african-american","tag-voting-restrictions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4939,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4937\/revisions\/4939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}