In recent weeks, U.S. Congresswoman of New York Grace Meng has proposed the 21st Century Voting Act, a bill which intends to “protect, improve, and modernize the act of voting.” According to Meng’s website as well as the language on the bill itself, the 21st Century Voting Act seeks to:

1. Make Election Day a national holiday;
2. Initiate automatic voter registration;
3. Restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated persons;
4. Make voter registration portable;
5. Allow voting information, such as polling place and registration status, to be available online;
6. Strengthen and streamline voting cybersecurity protections;
7. Provide additional federal resources to state and local election boards;
8. Establish a quadrennial review of voting in America.

In short, the act keeps in mind the protection of our voting rights and seeks to create greater accessibility to vote for all American citizens eligible to do so.

“It is way past time that Congress pass meaningful voting reform,” Meng said on her website. “It is ridiculous that in this day and age such troublesome hurdles exist that restrict access to the ballot box. My bill would address key priorities to modernizing our voting systems, including establishing automatic and portable voter registration, and making Election Day a national holiday. These commonsense reforms would allow every American the opportunity to participate in our electoral process, which is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. We must finally overhaul our disparate and complicated voting systems.”

Our right to vote is consistently explained to us as an equitable and democratic privilege that we have as American citizens—and this is true in the sense that our right to vote is founded upon such democratic principles. We are allowed to have a say in the actions of our country, and we have the power as the people of our country to elect who to grant greater powers to.

However, the issues Meng brings to light in the 21st Century Voting Act are crucial to upholding the democratic principles behind our right to vote. Despite the great ideals upon which our democracy has been founded upon, many members of American society have historically been barred from this right. Even after African Americans were technically granted the right to vote under the 15th amendment in 1870, it was not until almost a century later when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 that they could practice that right. Prior to that, the ability to vote was basically inaccessible due to many laws that were created with the intention to indirectly keep African American citizens from voting. Poll taxes prevented citizens who could not afford to pay the tax from voting, and literacy tests prevented uneducated citizens from voting, and furthermore tended to be selectively administered to African American citizens.

While these laws have since been repealed, still many barriers remain which keep voting inaccessible to many American citizens who by all means should be able to have a say in the way in which our country is run. Unsurprisingly, marginalized communities still tend to be disproportionately be effected.

In particular, the Asian American community has been seen to have the lowest voter turnout of any racial group in the United States, according to a study of the 2010 Midterm Elections done by the Pew Research group. Of Asian Americans who did not vote, most said that they were too busy with work or school to do so. In fact, nearly forty percent cited this as their reason for not voting, a rate fifty percent higher than any other racial or ethnic group. The ease of voting Meng’s bill presents is especially crucial to the Asian American community for this reason, as this accessibility could drastically increase Asian American voter turnout. With this, the Asian American community could very well gain the voice it deserves within our government.

It also comes at a key time following our last Presidential election, after which America was labeled a partial rather than full democracy for the first time ever. As citizens, the power of our right to vote is an idea that has been entrenched in our identity as Americans itself. The philosophy of a democratic society does not function unless all members of the society are granted some voice within their government. The right to vote lies at the foundation on which our country was built, and we should make every move to uphold these rights, or strip ourselves from all of the principles that we hold to be true as Americans. But with Meng’s 21st Century Voting Act in mind, we must also remember that with our support true voting equity is possible. And so we must go forth and mobilize, and with that, I urge our congress to support Meng’s bill with the same fervor I do.