President Joe Biden on Friday repeated his assertion that Republican state efforts to restore and tighten voting security laws were racist, issuing a statement called the efforts an atrocity and “Jim Crow in the 21st Century.” He called on Congress to pass a Democrat-driven bill that would largely mandate universal mail-in balloting and outlaw voter identification requirements nationwide.
The statement comes a day after Biden tore into Republican voting-reform measures during his first news conference with reporters, saying, “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” Also Thursday, Georgia became the first presidentrial battleground state to impose new voting restrictions, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, though other red states across the country are moving in a similar direction to tighten up voting rules.
For their part, Democrats and voting rights groups, which quickly filed suit in challenge to the Georgia measure, call these efforts an attempt to suppress voters, particularly those who are poor and of color.
While Republicans have condemned the Democrats’ bill in Congress, calling what is known as H.R. 1 a ”power grab,” Biden reiterated his party’s contention that the state-level GOP bills were racist documents, intended to keep Black people from voting.
”This is Jim Crow in the 21st century,” Biden said in the statement on the White House website. ”It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans access to the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote.”
Biden took particular aim at the election reform measure in Georgia. Among its provisions are requiring a photo ID in order to vote absentee by mail, setting an earlier deadline to request an absentee ballot, limiting where ballot drop boxes can be placed and when they can be accessed.
Republicans have claimed that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger unilaterally and unlawfully changed several provisions of Georgia election law last year to settle a lawsuit by Democrats that eased voting requirements.
”Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote,” Biden said in his statement. ”This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience.”
Numerous Republicans have excoriated the Democrats’ election law changes as attempts to prevent state governments from enforcing any election integrity measures.
“It is designed to entrench corrupt politicians in office and keep Democrats in power for 100 years.” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “It has the federal government take over all elections. It repeals virtually all of the commonsense state integrity laws.”
Jim Crow, which originated as a song-and-dance routine parodying Black people in the early 1800s, has become synonymous for racist and used to label a series of laws and actions in the southern United States.
Source: Newmax
