Update the Voting Rights Act: President Joe Biden broke promise to update the Voting Rights Act

Joe Biden's 2020 campaign promised to improve racial justice and protect voting rights.

But Biden's presidency failed to achieve his promise to update the Voting Rights Act.

Biden promised to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act which was designed to prevent states from passing voting laws that discriminate against minority voters. The bill was ultimately named in memory of John Lewis, the Georgia representative, civil rights leader and voting rights champion who died in 2020.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act barred voting restrictions based on race. But a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling essentially rendered part of the law moot. The court invited Congress to update it and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would have achieved that goal, but Democrats lacked the votes.

In November 2021, the Senate voted on the legislation 50-49, falling short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., reintroduced the bill in February 2024. It drew 49 co-sponsors but did not receive a vote. Biden called on Congress to pass the legislation during his March 2024 State of the Union Address.

"The Biden Administration never stopped talking about key democracy issues," said Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center.

Legal experts previously told us that Biden could not pass an order on his own to update the Voting Rights Act.

However, he took steps to protect voting rights, such as:

Several provisions were inserted into a major spending bill Biden signed in December 2022 to clarify parts of the 19th century Electoral Count Act that had governed the counting of electoral votes for well over a century. The legislation clarified and limited the role of the vice president, binds Congress to accept a single slate from each state to avoid "fake" electors and clarified the way states must certify their electoral votes. The goal was to avoid a situation in which a losing candidate sought to use the vice president to thwart voters' decisions.

Through a March 2021 executive order on promoting access to voting, the administration modernized vote.gov, a federal government website that has information about registering and voting. It also took steps to ensure that eligible Americans who use federal agencies have access to accurate information about voter registration.
The Justice Department undertook litigation to enforce the Voting Rights Act or the National Voter Registration Act and had some wins. In Alabama, a court issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the state from systemic removals of voters 90 days before the federal election; that case continues. The department won some cases pertaining to voter accessibility, including physical accessibility for voters with disabilities in Los Angeles County and providing Spanish language voting materials to voters in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and Union County, New Jersey.

Although Biden's administration took steps to protect voting rights, he did not achieve his promise to update the Voting Rights Act. We rate this Promise Broken.