Federal Election Reform

This site comprehensively catalogs and tracks election reform activity at the federal level.

Please use the sidebar to navigate the following sections:

  • Legislation: This page provides detailed information about all election reform legislation in the 109th, 110th, 111th and 112th Congresses. It includes detailed bill summaries, information about co-sponsors and related bills, and links to the relevant pages on Thomas, the official source of federal legislative information. Bills are also organized into easy-to-read tables by issue. There are also links to more detailed pages about select bills.
  • Hearings: This page contains information about past and upcoming Congressional hearings on election reform issues in the 110th, 111th, and 112th Congresses, listed in reverse chronological order with links to the testimony provided at each hearing.
  • News: This section contains news articles, editorials, op-eds, and announcements related to election reform at the federal level.
  • Research & Publications: Learn more about election reform issues here. This page links to Brennan Center publications on federal election reform, as well as additional webpages dedicated to specific election reform issues.
  • Federal Laws & Government Agencies: This page contains links to all federal voting laws, federal agencies that focus on election issues, and organizations of state and local election officials.
  • Congressional Committees: Learn more about the Congressional committees that have jurisdiction over election reform and voting issues at the federal level.
  • Voter Registration Modernization: This page includes information about Voter Registration Modernization, a proposal to improve our nation's voter registration system and bring it into the 21st century.
  • Democracy Restoration Act: Learn more about the Democracy Restoration Act, which would restore voting rights to 4 million disenfranchised Americans.
  • Congressional Response to Wave of Voting Restrictions: As individual states have been introducing and passing new laws that restrict access to the ballot box, members of Congress are responding at the federal level. They have introduced legislation, announced Congressional hearings, drafted letters, and given passionate floor speeches to stand up for the right to vote. This page will be updated as new Congressional actions are initiated.

Agenda for the 112th Congress: Voter Registration Modernization

logoSince the Florida election debacle in 2000 laid bare the way Americans cast and count votes, lawmakers and officials at federal, state, and local levels have made fitful progress toward building a modern and democratically inclusive election system. But the promise of a renewed democratic system has not been fully realized. Too often, when it comes to voting rights, policymaking has devolved into partisan wranging to become bogged down in arcane technicalities.

Today we have the opportunity for a major breakthrough for effective democracy. The 2008 election saw a record number of new voters. New election technology and the implementation of a recent federal law in the states make it possible to overcome the challenges with our voter registration system—the single greatest cause of voting problems in the United States.

We can now truly modernize the voter registration process by upgrading to a system of universal voter regstration—a system where all eligible citizens are able to vote because the government has taken the steps to make it possible for them to be on the voter rolls, permanently. Citizens must take responsibility to vote, but government should do its part by clearing away obstacles to their full participation. The current voter registration system—which is governed by a dizzying array of rules and is susceptible to error and manipulation—is the largest source of such obstacles.

Learn more about Voter Registration Modernization.