Senate Democrats are set to unveil the Freedom to Vote Act, which aims to restore the rights of 5.2 million voters.

The bill will make it easier to register to vote, establish a 15-day minimum for early voting, makes election day a federal holiday, targets gerrymandering, requires automatic voting registration, and establishes same-day voting registration at all polling locations in 2024, which will require a broad range of documents to qualify as proof of identification.

The bill will also restore the voting rights of convicts once their sentence expires and will require jurisdictions to have one dropbox per every 15,000 votes being cast.

“Following the 2020 elections in which more Americans voted than ever before, we have seen unprecedented attacks on our democracy in states across the country,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee.

"These attacks demand an immediate federal response," she added, noting that the bill would "set basic national standards to make sure all Americans can cast their ballots in the way that works best for them, regardless of what zip code they live in."

The Senate bill comes at a time when states such as Georgia have recently passed voter identification laws that limit the number of drop boxes and give voters less time to ask for an absentee ballot. This will make it harder for people to vote in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat to President Joe Biden that featured numerous complaints of unproven voter fraud.

"The right to vote is fundamental to our Democracy and the Freedom to Vote Act is a step in the right direction towards protecting that right for every American," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told NPR. "As elected officials, we also have an obligation to restore faith in our Democracy, and I believe that the commonsense provisions in this bill — like flexible voter ID requirements — will do just that."

In addition to the Freedom to Vote Act, Democrats are also trying to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which aims to restore the preclearance that the Supreme Court gutted in 2013. The preclearance required states with a history of racial discrimination to gain approval from the Justice Department before changing voting procedure.

Both bills are expected to be blocked by a Republican filibuster, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says that is no excuse for his party to do nothing.

“I applaud my colleagues for their hard work and their progress to come together with a very strong voting rights bill that all Democrats can support while respecting the role of states and promoting greater confidence in our democracy,” Schumer told the Washington Post.

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