Vice President Kamala Harris convenes voting rights leaders Tuesday reiterate the support of the White House on this issue as she has played a public role in championing several Democratic priorities – on access to the ballot as well as abortion rights.
For the second time, Harris summoned organizers described as being on the front lines of protecting voting rights and registering communities to vote, the White House said in a statement to ABC News.
The vice president and a few dozen leaders gathered in a closed-door roundtable discussion in the Indian Treaty Room.
“We saw those who loudly attempted to interfere with the legal vote of the American people and call into question the integrity of a fair and free electoral system,” Harris said before the roundtable. “We’ve seen an increase in threats against poll workers. In fact, I met some recently in Georgia who have had harrowing experiences in terms of threats, well-being and livelihoods.”
Underscoring his point, elsewhere Tuesday, an Indiana man pleaded guilty to charges that he threatened to kill a Michigan election worker who made public statements defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, the Justice Department said.
During her meeting at the White House, Harris outlined a four-point plan that the administration will implement to try to strengthen voters’ rights.
The plan includes emailing instructions on how to register to vote to everyone enrolled in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare; allowing students to get paid through federal work study to help people register to vote and work as nonpartisan poll workers; implement initiatives to protect election workers; and announcing three national “days of action” to promote voting.

Vice President Kamala Harris attends a meeting with voting rights leaders in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, February 27, 2024.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The three days will be June 19, the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6 and National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17, according to Harris.
The vice president also said she will be in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to remember “Bloody Sunday“, when white law enforcement officers attacked black voting rights demonstrators on March 7, 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.
“Many of us will be in Selma on Sunday to commemorate Bloody Sunday and remember the great John Lewis and Amelia Boynton and so many others – to appeal, once again, to Congress to pass the Free Voting Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.” Harris said.
Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. told ABC News he welcomed the vice president’s visit to highlight the need for equal voting rights across the country.
“I was 12 years old, March 7, 1965,” Perkins said. “I’ve seen adults cry. I’ve felt the tear gas in their hair and I’ve seen men on horseback go through the houses of GWC (George Washington Carver) chasing people. And so I know the sacrifices that have been made for people of color to gain the right to vote in this nation.
President Joe Biden has pushed for years for lawmakers to implement major election and voting reforms that his supporters say would expand access to the ballot.
Opponents, including many Republicans, say such legislation would allow the federal government to encroach on state authority.
While Biden and Harris, now in the early stages of their re-election campaign, have reiterated their support for voting rights, they have also been criticized by their party for not taking more aggressive action.
At the same time, the Voting Rights Act has come under new legal scrutiny.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a meeting with Texas lawmakers in Washington, DC, July 13, 2021. Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives, after fleeing Austin to prevent the passage of a law that would put in place new voting restrictions, took to Capitol Hill today to convince Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation.
Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A federal appeals panel ruled in November that a key provision of the landmark law does not allow people outside the federal government to sue over allegations of race-based voting discrimination.
For decades, individual voters and civil rights groups have successfully challenged Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, including most recently before the Supreme Court in a case over whether Alabama’s congressional map had been drawn to dilute black voting power. The judges sided with the plaintiffs.
Several civil rights organizations, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, appealed the decision in December. The case will likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court this year.
The conservative majority of the Court has already significantly reduced this law by a series of recent decisions make its application consistent with their interpretation of the law.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Alexander Mallin, Isabella Murray and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.