John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025

Key Points

• The bill restores federal preclearance requirements that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. States with 15 or more voting rights violations in the past 25 years, or 10 violations where at least one was committed by the state itself, would need federal approval before changing their voting laws for a 10-year period.
• Specific voting changes in areas with large minority populations would require preclearance even if the state as a whole is not covered. These "covered practices" include changes to election methods, voter ID requirements, redistricting, polling place closures, reductions to Sunday voting, and new voter roll purge processes.
• States and local governments would be required to publicly announce voting changes within 48 hours and post detailed polling place information online at least 30 days before a federal election, including the number of voting machines and poll workers at each location.
• The bill strengthens legal standards for proving voting discrimination. It creates new tests for "vote denial or abridgement" where plaintiffs can show that a voting rule imposes greater costs on minority voters linked to historical discrimination, without needing to prove intentional bias.
• The Attorney General gains new enforcement powers, including the ability to send federal observers to more election sites, issue demands for election-related documents from states, and investigate potential voting discrimination. Individual citizens also gain expanded ability to bring lawsuits.
• A new anti-retrogression provision bars states from rolling back voting access on the basis of race after January 1, 2021. Any change that diminishes the ability of citizens to participate or elect their preferred candidates based on race would violate the law.