As the nation engages in another high-stakes election season, the Governmental Affairs Office’s Election Center serves as a central location for substantive, nonpartisan information for all voters.
Updated regularly, the Election Center helps citizens find everything needed for the November elections. The election tools can help someone register to vote, check and update existing registration and locate their nearest polling place. The Center also offers state-by-state information on early and absentee voting, voting laws and key election dates. Additional resources for voters will be posted closer to Election Day.
The ABA has a number of other initiatives as it continues to work to ensure free and fair elections through education, advocacy and policies:The ABA’s nonpartisan Poll Worker, Esq. initiative, developed by the Standing Committee on Election Law encourages lawyers, law students and other legal professionals to serve as poll workers in the November election.
The ABA Section of State and Local Government Law’s initiative, Defending Democracy, focuses on state and local election administrators and their work as they ensure the democratic process.
The ABA is also updating its Election Administration Guidelines and Commentary. At the 2022 Annual Meeting in August, the House of Delegates will consider Guideline revisions that, among other actions, urge authorities to ensure the personal security of election administrators and voters during the voting process.
On the legislative front, the ABA is supporting amendments to the Voting Rights Act to restore Section 5 preclearance provisions and strengthen the litigation remedy under Section 2.
In addition, the ABA supports modernizing the Electoral Count Act by clarifying that the vice president’s role is administrative and increasing the threshold number of Congressional representatives required to raise or sustain an objection to a state’s slate of electors.
Under proposed legislation released last week by a bipartisan group of senators, one-fifth of the House and Senate, an increase from one member in each chamber, would be required for Congress to consider an objection to a state’s Electoral College votes. On the vice president’s role, the proposed legislation aligns with the ABA’s position, which urges clarification that the vice president, or any other presiding officer authorized by law, has no authority to decide which votes shall be counted.