“I’m proud our legislation will address these systemic deficiencies so we can make sure everyone is able to vote regardless of a disability, where you live, or what language you speak.”
Advance the Accessible Voting Act to expand voting access for older Americans, people with disabilities, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Indigenous peoples, and language-minority voters by improving accessible registration, absentee voting, in-person voting, voter information, training, and grant support.
Occurrences
Evidence
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The House amendment was titled the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act and included voter-access divisions covering registration, disability and older-voter access, vote by mail, HAVA funding support, poll-worker training grants, and a Native American Voting Rights Act subtitle with task-force grants, accessible Tribal polling sites, language-assistance provisions, and protections for American Indian and Alaska Native voters.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The House Clerk records H.R. 5746 as passing on the motion to concur with an amendment, 220-203, and lists Rep. Raskin of Maryland voting Yea.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The Senate vote on cloture for the motion to concur in the House amendment to H.R. 5746 required three-fifths support; the result was rejected, 49 yeas to 51 nays.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
H.R. 1 included election-access provisions for online and automatic registration, HAVA payments, access to voting for individuals with disabilities, grants to assure disability voting access, early voting, voting by mail, poll-worker recruitment and training grants, Indian-land accommodations, voter information response systems, drop boxes, and curbside voting.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The House Clerk records H.R. 1, the For the People Act, as passing 220-210 and lists Rep. Raskin of Maryland voting Yea.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
Congress.gov lists H.R. 1 as introduced by Rep. John Sarbanes, passed by the House on March 3, 2021, and received in the Senate on March 11, 2021; its status is Passed House, not law.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The Senate vote on cloture for proceeding to S. 2093, the For the People Act of 2021, required three-fifths support; cloture was rejected, 50 yeas to 50 nays.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
GovInfo lists H.R. 7389 as the Accessible Voting Act of 2024; the last listed action says Scanlon, Dean, and Raskin introduced the bill and it was referred to the House Committee on House Administration. The bill version is Introduced in House.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The bill text states the purpose is to improve access for older individuals, individuals with disabilities, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and limited-English-proficiency voters to register and cast ballots. Its table of contents includes accessible election websites, absentee voting access, in-person voting protections, payments to states, a national resource center, and grants.
Assessments
Raskin materially advanced the policy by voting for broad voting-access bills and helping introduce H.R. 7389, the Accessible Voting Act of 2024, whose text closely matched the promised accessibility, Native/Alaska Native, language-access, training, and grant provisions. But the official record shows the Accessible Voting Act only reached introduction/referral, and earlier voting-access vehicles passed the House but failed in the Senate. Because the promised substantive voting-access expansion was not enacted or otherwise delivered, this is a failed delivery with clear legislative effort.
Raskin made concrete House-side efforts to advance voting-access legislation matching the promise, including voting for H.R. 1 and the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act package in H.R. 5746. Those bills included disability access, older-voter access, registration, mail/absentee voting, Native and Alaska Native voting provisions, language assistance, training, and grant support. However, the relevant federal legislation did not become law after Senate cloture failed, so the promised voting-access expansion was not delivered.