“I’m disappointed – but I’m not discouraged”. Joe Biden promised not to relax his efforts on Wednesday after the burial of his electoral reform by the US Senate. By this text, the president promised to protect access to the ballot boxes for African-Americans.
Ten months before the mid-term legislative elections, Joe Biden Democrat wanted with this reform to lay down a federal framework for the organization of the polls in the United States. And in doing so, cancel a series of restrictions adopted in fifteen conservative states since the 2020 presidential election.
According to NGOs, these restrictions deliberately discriminate against black voters, the majority who voted for Joe Biden in the last election.
In the Republican states, on the contrary, it is assured that these measures strengthen the security of the country’s polls, a strong argument with their voters, many of whom still believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump.
The organization of elections is more than ever a hot topic in America. Democrats in the Senate were desperate to pass Joe Biden’s big electoral reform to undo those measures before the midterm elections.
But the Republican opposition, standing against this law which, according to it, would entrust the Democrats with control of the polls across the country, united on Wednesday evening. It thus deprived the Democrats of the “supermajority” of 60 votes required in the Senate to close the debates and submit the text to the vote.
In a final attempt, the Democratic staff tried to push the text with its only votes via a so-called “nuclear” option, but which the most moderate of this camp, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, opposed.
“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate has failed to defend our democracy“Reacted Joe Biden just after the vote, stressing that he would not relax his efforts on this file.
During his press conference a few hours before the vote, the American president had also stressed that he had not “exhausted all options” to protect African Americans’ access to the vote, without giving further details.