The Election Reform Agenda – Part 2: Voting Rights

H.R. 1, the For the People Act, is a sweeping bill that aims to strengthen American democracy. Included in the bill are reforms to election administration, campaign finance, gerrymandering, and voting rights. H.R. 1 passed the House in 2019, and is likely to be brought up in Congress again this year.  

What exactly is included in H.R. 1 and what are the arguments of its supporters and detractors? Join us for a deep dive into four components of this historic legislation. Each panel brings together advocates, critics, and academics to describe the specific reforms under consideration.   

Voting Rights panel discusses how HR1 recommits to the protections of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, restores felony voting rights, creates safeguards against purges of voting rolls, and requires voter-verified paper ballots.

These panels are co-sponsored by the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and the Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. 

Video

Resources

Session Moderators: 

Nate Persily, Co-Director of the Program on Democracy and Internet at Stanford PACS and the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project

Didi Kuo, Associate Director for Research, Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University

Speakers

• Dale Ho - Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project
• Myrna Perez - Director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program
• Janai Nelson - Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
• Guy-Uriel Charles - Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law at Duke Law School