President Biden is signed an executive order on Sunday that directed the government to take steps to make voting easier, marking the 56th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., which swiftly turned voting rights into a national cause.
The multipart order is aimed at using the far-flung reach of federal agencies to help people register to vote and to encourage Americans to go to the polls on Election Day. In a speech for the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast on Sunday, Mr. Biden argued that such actions were still necessary despite the progress of the last half-century.
“The legacy of the march in Selma is that while nothing can stop a free people from exercising their most sacred power as citizens, there are those who will do everything they can to take that power away,” Mr. Biden said.
“Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have it counted,” he said. “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let more people vote.”
The president’s actions come in the wake of his predecessor’s monthslong assault on the voting process during the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot that erupted at the U.S. Capitol after that predecessor, Donald J. Trump, repeatedly sought to overturn the election results.
The executive order is relatively limited in scope. It calls upon officials at federal agencies to study and potentially expand access to voter registration materials, especially for those with disabilities, incarcerated people and other historically underserved groups.
It also orders a modernization of the federally run Vote.gov website to ensure that it provides the most up-to-date information about voting and elections.
But the order does not directly address efforts by many Republican-led state legislatures to restrict voting, including measures that would roll back the mail voting established in many states during the pandemic.