Biden issues order to make voting easer

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Sunday designed to make it easier for Americans to vote as Republicans across the country seek to limit voting rights in the wake of the 2020 election.

Biden's order comes on the 56th anniversary of the 1965 Bloody Sunday when state troopers and police attacked civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, who were protesting racial discrimination at the voting booth.

Bloody Sunday became a turning point in the fight for voting rights for African Americans.

"The legacy of the march in Selma is that while nothing can stop a free people from exercising their most sacred power as a citizen, there are those who will do everything they can to take that power away," Biden said in pre-taped remarks released on Sunday.

Biden's executive order directs federal agencies to submit plans within 200 days to expand voter registration and distribute election information to voters.

It also directs the US chief information officer to modernise federal websites and digital services that provide such details.

The push by Democrats to make it easier to vote comes as Republican lawmakers in dozens of states have moved to restrict voting access after former President Donald Trump's loss in the November election.

Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged and criticised mail voting efforts put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol in January as lawmakers were meeting to certify Biden's win.

Biden cited the historic turnout in the 2020 election in the midst of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

"Yet instead of celebrating this powerful demonstration of voting - we have seen an unprecedented insurrection in our Capitol and a brutal attack on our democracy on January 6th," he said.

"And to think that it's been followed by an all-out assault on the right to vote in state legislatures all across the country happening right now."