Republican elected officials in the US Senate refused, Wednesday, November 3, to debate a bill facilitating access to the vote for minorities, threatened according to the Democrats in several conservative states.
This text, named after the civil rights icon and democratic parliamentarian who died in 2020 John Lewis, aims to cancel measures, often very technical, adopted this year by at least 19 states to limit access to the ballot boxes for minorities, most notably African Americans, who vote overwhelmingly Democrats, according to the Brennan Center for Justice think tank.
This is the third time that this bill, passed in August by the House of Representatives, has been blocked by Republicans in the Senate, where it needs a majority of 60 elected to be approved.
“The soul of America is at stake”
President Joe Biden denounced this blockage. “Voting is a sacred and constitutional right, he hammered in a press release. The soul of America is at stake. “
Obligation to have an address to register on the electoral rolls, ban on giving food or drink to voters queuing in front of a polling station, ban on voting on accessible sites without leaving your car: here are some of them provisions of the 30 or so restrictive electoral laws adopted across the country.
This process has accelerated in Republican states against the backdrop of unproven accusations of massive electoral fraud hammered out by Donald Trump since the November 2020 presidential election.
The conduct of elections is managed locally in the United States, and Republicans consider that Congress is overstepping its powers in deciding how the elections are to be conducted. Requiring photo identification to vote is common sense, they argue. Only Republican Senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, voted Wednesday to have the text debated. She had previously felt that “All Americans deserved an equal chance to participate in our electoral system”.