[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 183 (Thursday, September 22, 2022)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 57793-57794]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-20695]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 87 , No. 183 / Thursday, September 22, 2022 /
Presidential Documents
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Title 3--
The President
[[Page 57793]]
Proclamation 10452 of September 19, 2022
National Voter Registration Day, 2022
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy--
it defines us as Americans and serves as the
cornerstone of our liberty. With it, anything is
possible in America; without it, nothing is. It is a
legacy passed down by our greatest leaders--a legacy
which provides each one of us with a voice in the
creation of a better Nation. It is the source of our
power as citizens, our mightiest tool of social
transformation, and the stabilizing tradition that
confers legitimacy to our system of Government. Each
year on National Voter Registration Day, we reaffirm
our conviction that democracy only works when everyone
can participate, and we encourage all eligible
Americans to register to vote.
Our Nation has not always lived up to its promise of
equal access to the right to vote, and so many
Americans have struggled, suffered, and died fighting
for a say in the destiny of our country. From Seneca
Falls, New York, to Selma, Alabama, to Washington, DC--
and across America--ordinary people have organized to
protest disenfranchisement and won. The efforts of
these courageous women and men have led to the passage
of landmark civil rights legislation like the Voting
Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and
the Help America Vote Act, which extended the blessings
of democracy to millions of citizens. Lately, however,
those protections have been weakened by decisions of
the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, State
legislatures are passing new forms of voting
restrictions to limit participation and choose whose
vote can count at all. As the late Representative John
Lewis, an icon of the voting rights struggle, would
say, ``democracy is not a state; it is an act.'' Our
Founding Fathers understood this, as did the
suffragists at the National Women's Rights Convention
of 1848, the other giants of the Civil Rights Movement,
and today's activists working for a freer, fairer, and
more accessible voting system. Just as securing and
protecting voting rights was the test of their times,
it continues to be the challenge of ours.
As President, I will do everything in my power to
protect the right to vote and ensure that every
American has a free and fair opportunity to exercise
this fundamental liberty. This means appointing highly
qualified advocates to the Department of Justice and
doubling the agency's voting rights enforcement staff
to ensure the Department has the resources to fight
voter suppression in the courts. It also means issuing
an Executive Order to establish a whole-of-government
effort to promote access to voter registration and
election information, especially in some of our most
underserved communities. I have directed my
Administration to take historic action to help college
students and veterans register effectively. I continue
to call on the Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act
and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. These
laws would address election subversion, remove dark
money from politics, end partisan gerrymandering, and
fix the gaping holes in voter access left by the
Supreme Court of the United States. They would also
allow the Justice Department to halt discriminatory
laws before they go into effect.
[[Page 57794]]
In celebration of National Voter Registration Day, let
us honor the heroes who fought to secure voting rights
and expand them. I call on all eligible Americans to
ensure that their registration is up to date and to
encourage their family, neighbors, and friends to do
the same. Let us all remain engaged with the ongoing
struggle to build an America where every vote matters
and where every citizen has the ability and the right
to participate freely in the democratic process. We
cannot give up now. The future of our Nation depends on
it. To learn more about how to register or check your
voter registration information, you can visit vote.gov.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by virtue of the
authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 20,
2022, as National Voter Registration Day. I call on all
eligible Americans to observe this day by ensuring that
they are accurately registered and by committing to
cast a ballot in upcoming elections.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord
two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
seventh.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 2022-20695
Filed 9-21-22; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3395-F2-P