Sponsor
Kirsten Gillibrand
Senator · D-NY
Senator · D-NY
Official title: 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 Kirsten Gillibrand · Last progress March 25, 2026
The bill aims to substantially expand access, accessibility, auditability, and federal standards for federal elections — strengthening voter enfranchisement and integrity — but does so at the cost of sizeable implementation spending, increased federal involvement (and related legal/federalism disputes), higher administrative workloads, and privacy and litigation risks.
Millions of eligible voters (students, young adults, low‑income people, immigrants, and others) will find it easier to register — via online registration, automatic voter registration (AVR), same‑day registration, campus/16–17 registration programs, and expanded outreach — increasing registration rates and reducing barriers to enrolling.
People with disabilities and older voters will gain substantially improved access to registration, absentee voting, and private verification/casting options through accessible online forms, assisted services, and targeted outreach, preserving independence and ballot secrecy.
Every federal vote will produce a voter‑verified, durable paper ballot with strong chain‑of‑custody, secure storage, retention rules, and hand‑countable auditability, enabling meaningful post‑election audits and boosting confidence in election integrity.
States, localities, and taxpayers will face significant new costs (IT systems, paper ballots, postage, staff, training, audits, grants) to implement online registration, AVR, durable‑paper requirements, ballot tracking, extended early voting, and other mandates.
The Act increases federal standards, oversight, and enforcement across many aspects of election administration, reducing state flexibility and prompting federalism disputes or legal challenges over state authority to run elections.
Broad automatic‑registration and expanded data sharing (agency transfers, student lists, motor vehicle records) and new online systems raise privacy and cybersecurity risks if safeguards fail, exposing personal data and creating potential breaches.
Based on analysis of 19 sections of legislative text.
Modernizes registration (online/automatic/campus), expands early and mail voting access and cures, requires voter‑verified paper ballots and audits, adds enforcement and penalties, and aids re‑enfranchisement.
Requires states and institutions to expand and modernize voter registration and voting access, strengthen ballot security and auditing, protect voters from deceptive challenges, restore voting rights for many people with criminal convictions, and create new enforcement tools and penalties. Major provisions include universal online registration availability, automatic and campus-based registration duties, expanded early in-person voting and mail-voting protections and cure procedures, new criminal and civil penalties for deceptive election interference and ‘‘voter caging,’’ disability-access requirements, and federal enforcement mechanisms and grants to support poll worker recruitment. The law phases in many changes (some effective for elections in 2027, major early-voting and survey requirements beginning with the November 2028 general election), authorizes EAC grants for poll-worker recruitment, and creates private and Attorney General enforcement paths, while imposing new compliance duties on states, colleges, and election officials.