When Joe Biden is inaugurated next month, he will take over America where democracy is in crisis.
The 2020 election highlighted the urgent need to protect the right to vote in America. During the year, voters waited for hours to cast their votes, some into the wee hours of the morning. Democrats and voting rights groups sparked an explosion of a lawsuit trying to block a ban on postal voting because Republicans across the country refused to budge.
The president’s ability to resolve these issues largely depends on whether Democrats win two overhaul Senate races in Georgia, giving them full control over Congress and the White House. . If Democrats take full control, they are likely to move far-reaching voting reforms, including calling for automatic voter registration across the country and renewing the full protections of the Rights Act Vote.
But if Democrats do not take back the Senate, Biden will be more limited in what he can do to fix voting rights. The U.S. constitution gives the president almost no power over elections, instead entrusting that authority to state and Congressional legislatures. Nonetheless, there are a number of key areas where Biden could work unilaterally.
2020 Account
Biden may immediately have a chance to take out some of Donald Trump’s unprecedented issues in the 2020 census, the crucial critical analysis that determines how many seats in Congress each state can win and how to get $ 1.5tn in federal currency. Even after a long delay from the Census Bureau, the Trump administration has rushed the agency to complete its work before Trump leaves office, raising serious questions about the quality and accuracy of Census data. .
The ashes appear to be linked to an action order issued by the president last summer, seeking to ban unauthorized immigrants from the data used to allocate transport seats. . The U.S. government has long allocated conference seats based on the total population and Trump’s change may result in full-immigrant states like California and Texas losing conference seats while they last. taking advantage of white, conservation areas. The U.S. high court recently dismissed a lawsuit challenging the move, saying it was premature, but a majority of judges did not rule out merit.
The Census Bureau recently revealed, however, that it may not be able to deliver apportionment data to Trump before he leaves office. If Biden takes office before the data is released, he could order a Trump memo to dismiss unauthorized people who are excluded from the apportionment account. Even if Trump releases the data, there may be mechanisms for the U.S. House to invite the new president to review it.
Either way, the Biden administration will take a census “that was involved in unprecedented unrest because of the pandemic, but also because of unprecedented political obstruction in the new era”, said Terri Ann Lowenthal, accounting consultant.
“I think the Biden administration can rightly, and should, look at ways in which the activities of the current administration could influence the decisions of the Census Bureau officials to ensure that the census correct and high quality possible, “said Lowenthal.” And if the new administration decides that the Census Bureau was not able to do its best work, free from political or party considerations, I think that the new administration has justified in directing the Census Bureau, through the secretary of commerce, to go back no matter what work it has already done. “
Expanding voter registration
The constitution allows each U.S. state to set its own voter registration rules, but Biden could use federal law to significantly expand voter registration opportunities. Legislation in 1993, the National Voter Registration Act, requires almost all states to allow people to vote when interacting with the DMV and other state bodies.
However, federal agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration and Indian Health Service, may choose to offer voter registration services if a state requires it, but they are not required to do so. Biden could change that and issue an order of action asking federal agencies to accept it if a state wants them to be a voter registration body under the law.
“That would go a long way to addressing the fact that tens of millions of eligible citizens are not on the rolls,” said Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos, a civil rights think tank that has advocated for change. .
Such a change could make a big difference to Native Americans, a group whose voter turnout has historically lagged behind national standards. The Indian Health Service, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, provides medical care to approximately 2.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives. Designing U.S. Customs and Immigration Services a voter registration body under the law could also extend voter registration to nearly a quarter of a million people who become natural citizens each year, according to the Brennan Justice Center.
Department of Justice
Since Trump took office, the Department of Justice (DoJ) polling department, which is tasked with enforcing America’s most powerful voting rights laws, has made little effort to protect voting rights. . In fact, the department has been silent on the subject. The only high-profile cases the department has engaged in are cases where it has aligned with states to protect voting restrictions, including an aggressive voter clearance policy. Ohio and Texas voter ID law.
As president, Biden will appoint both an attorney general and someone to oversee the department’s civil rights division, which includes the voting division. Both of these officials could identify the implementation of voting rights as a top priority for the region and push for the region to be more aggressive in enforcing suffrage situations.
The absence of the justice department in the area of voting rights is making a big difference, former officials of the department and civil rights advocates told the Guardian earlier this year. The justice department has many resources to cover voting rights issues and can prevent bad actors from going through measures that make it more difficult to vote.
The justice department also represents the views of the United States, carrying credibility in court that draws the attention of judges. The justice department is not usually involved in many disputes about voting rights, but when it does, the courts will hear.
“It’s not going to be easy.” The courts have raised much more conservative and hostile rights to voting rights claims. But the justice department needs to be a player in this and it will be good to be on the right side of voting rights issues again, ”said Bains.