While federal electoral reform legislation languishes in Congress, the executive branch is taking small but significant steps toward promoting access to the ballot box.
In March, President Biden issued an executive order asking federal agencies to evaluate how they can, within their purview of the law, encourage voter registration and participation. The deadline for agencies to submit their proposals was Sept. 23, and this week the White House announced the first set of plans.
Here's how 14 federal departments and agencies plan to promote voter participation and access:
- The Agriculture Department will facilitate voting information for Americans living in rural areas who interact with their services.
- The Department of Defense will provide comprehensive election information in multiple languages, particularly about mail voting, to military service members and civilians stationed away from home or overseas.
- The Department of Education will create a toolkit containing civic education resources and strategies for K-12 and higher education institutions.
- The General Services Administration will update vote.gov, the federal voter registration portal, to be more user-friendly for all Americans.
- The Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Community Living will establish a new voting information hub for older Americans and disabled individuals. The Indian Health Service will assist patients with voter registration. And Biden's budget calls for a 25 percent increase in grants for services that will help people with disabilities fully participate in the electoral process.
- The Department of Homeland Security will encourage state and local governments, as well as nonprofit organizations, to register the hundreds of thousands of individuals who become naturalized citizens each year and provide these new citizens with voting information. DHA will also provide voting information and resources to those impacted by natural disasters or other emergencies.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development will instruct 3,000 public housing authorities that manage 1.2 million units to provide voter registration information to residents. The department will also work to improve voting access for people experiencing homelessness.
- The Institute of Museum and Library Services will create and promote a civic engagement toolkit that libraries, museums, and heritage and cultural institutions can use.
- The Department of the Interior will share voter registration information with schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education and tribal colleges and universities, serving about 30,000 students. The department will also promote tribal colleges and universities as voter registration agencies.
- The Justice Department has created an online resource with state-specific registration and voting information, details on federal voting rights laws and instructions on how to report potential voting rights violations. DOJ will also provide voting information to people in federal custody and facilitate voting for those still eligible.
- The Department of Labor will encourage states to make the more than 2,400 American Job Centers across all 50 states official voter registration agencies.
- The Department of Transportation will issue guidance to more than 1,150 rural public transit systems and more than 1,000 urban public transit systems to consider providing free and reduced fare service on Election Day and distributing voting information in stations. The department will also work to mitigate traffic and construction that impacts routes to the polls, particularly in underserved communities.
- The Treasury Department will include voting information in its direct deposit campaigns for Americans who receive Social Security, Veterans Affairs and other federal benefit payments.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs will provide voting information and assistance to medical center patients and residents of nursing homes and treatment centers.
More initiatives from federal agencies will be rolled out in the coming months.
Before the agencies submitted their plans to the White House, the Campaign Legal Center outlined recommendations and best practices for promoting voter access.
Demos, a progressive think tank that advocates for democracy reform, celebrated this step forward, while also pushing for further action from the federal government.
"The actions outlined today are a good start and, with additional consultation, creative thinking, and commitments, have the potential to transform how and where people register to vote all across America. This is especially significant in Black, brown and low-income communities, where we see notably lower rates of voter registration," said Laura Williamson, senior policy analyst at Demos.
When announcing these plans for promoting electoral participation, Vice President Harris also emphasized the importance of Congress passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. However, with the filibuster still intact, both bills have a slim chance of success in the Senate.
"Our nation and democracy are stronger when everyone participates, and weaker when anyone is left out," Harris said. "The president and I will help ensure these plans are fully implemented, and we will continue to work closely with these agencies to bring a whole-of-government approach to making voting accessible for all Americans."
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.