This week, three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on rising threats to the freedom to vote as Republican-led state legislatures across the country continue to pursue laws and policies to put up barriers to voting—particularly for Black and brown voters—and undermine our elections. The Committee on House Administration held a hearing on the threat of election subversion, the Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing on the proposed Texas voting restriction bill, and the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the need to enhance the Voting Rights Act. In the hearings, witnesses urged the Senate to pass the For the People Act to counteract these measures and protect democracy.
Meanwhile, outside of Washington, Republicans and their dark-money allies continued their assault on the right to vote. So far, one-third of stateshave passed at least one restrictive voter law in 2021.
In Georgia, Republicans are considering taking election authority away from County election officials and giving that power to a partisan state election board. The GOP efforts aim to take away authority from officials in Fulton County, Georgia’s largest and one of the most Democratic, minority-majority counties.
In Texas, a new report showed that an estimated 1.9 million people in Texas would be impacted by a little talked about ID-matching provision in the proposed Republican anti-voting law, with no method to cure their ballot. Had this proposal been in place during the 2020 election, it is estimated that over 100,000 ballots would have been thrown out.
In Florida, despite the fact that former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020, Republicans are attempting to launch a sham review of the 2020 election results similar to the one in Arizona. The sham audit, predicated on the ‘Big Lie’, seeks to only review the results of Florida’s five largest and most diverse counties.
In Arizona, state Senate Republicans issued two new subpoenas related to their never-ending sham election review. The new subpoenas are the latest maneuver in the unprecedented partisan review of the 2020 election results in Arizona’s largest county.
Self-serving Republicans politicians will stop at nothing to restrict the freedom to vote unless Congress intervenes. Without federal voting rights legislation, attacks on democracy will continue to escalate nationwide and hundreds of thousands of Americans will face difficulties exercising their fundamental right to vote.
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