The Atlantic Democrats Are Short on Votes and Long on Irony The party’s signature election-reform bill faces long odds in Congress, in part because of the problems it seeks to address. 6:30 AM ET Alamy / Getty / Adam Maida / The Atlantic Call it a catch-535: Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a huge slate of voting-related reforms, under the name of the For the People Act, or H.R. 1, that could aggressively reshape U.S. elections, change the way Americans vote, and also go a long way toward alleviating the Democratic Party’s structural electoral disadvantages. But the Democrats have to pass this bill with the tight margins they have in the House of Representatives and the Senate, thanks in part to the same structural disadvantages. The party finds itself short on votes and long on irony.