Sponsors (4)
Official title: To modernize voter registration, promote access to voting for individuals with disabilities, protect the ability of individuals to exercise the right to vote in elections for Federal office, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 25, 2026 by James Enos Clyburn · Last progress March 25, 2026
The bill substantially expands and standardizes access, accessibility, integrity, and federal oversight of federal elections—boosting registration, voting options, and protections for many voters—at the cost of large implementation and compliance burdens for states and localities, greater federal enforcement and litigation, and new privacy/security and political‑speech risks.
Eligible voters — especially students, low-income people, and other underrepresented groups — will be registered more automatically and easily (online registration, agency-based automatic registration, campus outreach, preregistration for 16–17 year‑olds), increasing registration rates and representation.
Voters — including seniors, people with disabilities, rural and working voters — will have substantially expanded options to vote (at-least-15-day early in-person voting with extended hours, easier absentee/vote-by-mail with tracking and cure periods, more return and drop‑off options), making voting more convenient and reducing wrongful ballot rejections.
People with past felony convictions who are living in the community regain the right to vote in federal elections and will receive notice of their voting rights, restoring participation for millions and reducing disparate geographic disenfranchisement.
State and local election offices and taxpayers will face substantial new costs and operational burdens (IT upgrades, new equipment, staffing for extended early voting and ballot processing, postage/prepaid envelopes, training, reporting), pressuring budgets and requiring resource reallocations.
The bill creates greater litigation and enforcement pressure (private rights of action, expanded DOJ roles, fast timelines for suits and remedies), which will likely increase lawsuits against states and officials and accelerate federal involvement in election administration.
Expanding online registration, collecting electronic signatures and emails, and transmitting blank ballots electronically raises data privacy and cybersecurity risks that could expose voter data or ballot materials if systems or contractor safeguards are inadequate.
Based on analysis of 19 sections of legislative text.
Imposes nationwide standards to expand registration (online/automatic), require early voting and paper ballots, restrict voter challenges/deception, and strengthen absentee/UOCAVA protections.
Creates a comprehensive package of federal election reforms to expand access, strengthen voting security, and standardize procedures across States. It mandates online voter registration and automatic-registration data flows from federal agencies, requires early in-person voting and uniform absentee voting rules, strengthens voter-verified paper-ballot and audit requirements, protects against deceptive practices and voter-caging, restores and harmonizes voting eligibility for people with criminal convictions, broadens voter registration duties for institutions of higher education, and establishes enforcement and reporting tools for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and Attorney General. The bill also adds criminal prohibitions against targeted deceptive communications and certain voter‑challenge practices, creates grant funding for poll worker recruitment and training, imposes new administrative and reporting deadlines for overseas ballots, and phases in multiple effective dates (notably January 1, 2027 and November 2028) for key provisions. It contains severability and enforcement mechanisms including private rights of action and federal enforcement through the Attorney General and EAC reporting/oversight.