Politics & Government
Voting Rights Advocates Air Worries About Onslaught Of New State Election Laws
One of our most sacred rights in this country is the right to vote.
April 04, 2021
A U.S. House elections panel on Thursday heard from witnesses about the need to craft a new formula that identifies which states or jurisdictions have problematic histories of racial discrimination when it comes to access to the ballot box. The hearing in the House Administration Committee’s elections subcommittee also served as a way for voting rights advocates to raise broader concerns about GOP-controlled state legislatures around the country that are engaging in a push to enact laws they say are aimed at election security. The rush to pass new voting laws followed baseless claims of fraud by President Donald Trump and his supporters in the November elections. After legal maneuvers failed and nonpartisan watchdogs concluded there was no evidence of such fraud, the GOP strategy has shifted to passing the new state laws. Voting rights advocates say the fallout could be a decline in voter participation and disenfranchisement of voters of color.
“One of our most sacred rights in this country is the right to vote,” the chairman of the House Administration Committee’s elections subcommittee, G. K. Butterfield, (D-N.C.), said.
Allison Riggs, who leads the voting rights program at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in North Carolina, said that her state “remains the most active battlefield for access to the ballot box.”
“In North Carolina (state) legislature efforts are now underway to restrict access to absentee voting,” she said.
