Vice-President Kamala Harris And President Biden Went To Georgia This Week Demanding The Senate Pass Legislation To Protect Voting Rights. Harris Attacked The GOP Voter Suppression Movement By Saying, “Anti-voter laws are not new in our nation, but we must not be deceived into thinking they are normal. We must not be deceived into thinking a law that makes it more difficult for students to vote is normal. We must not be deceived into thinking a law that makes it illegal to help a voter with a disability vote by mail is normal. There is nothing normal about a law that makes it illegal to a pass out water or food to people standing in long voting lines.” The GOP Is Making It Harder, Not Easier To Vote.

Before Donald Trump was corrupted and took control of the Republican party, protecting voting rights was historically an issue supported by both parties. The Freedom To Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are two bills aimed at helping easy access to voting for all Americans. These bills also increase protections against partisan influence over legitimate election results. President Biden is now making voter protection his #1 agenda issue and managing the COVID pandemic. Here is what is in these bills. Not 1 Republican Senator supports either of these bills, which is a stark departure from the patriotism shown by Republicans in the past who voted in favor of strengthening voter protections. Republicans see their white population majority shifting due to the diversity of America’s population. The need for the GOP to cheat to win elections is why they hold their noses while they support the most dishonest, racist man ever to be the U.S. president. These laws protect democracy; Republicans don’t.

The Freedom to Vote Act includes provisions such as:

• Election Day as a federal holiday. 
• Online, automatic, and same-day voter registration. 
• A minimum of 15 days of early voting, including during at least two weekends.ample access to ballot drop boxes and online ballot tracking, in addition to streamlined election mail delivery by the US Postal Service.
• States would need to accept a wide range of forms of non-photographic identification in places where ID is required to vote.  
• Counting eligible votes on provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. 
• Restoring voting rights to the formerly incarcerated Imposes stricter regulations on voter list maintenance that make it harder for states to remove eligible voters from the rolls.
• More protections and resources to serve voters with disabilities and overseas/military voters.  
• Greater federal protections and oversight for voting in US territories. 
• Improving voter registration resources and outreach, in addition to reauthorizing and strengthening the US elections
• The bill also includes the Right to Vote Act, which creates an affirmative right to vote in federal law.
• Campaign finance reform dealing with dark money and superpac coordination with campaigns.

The John Lewsis Voting Rights Advancement Act specifies:

• Reverses the Supreme Court’s new “guideposts” and standards from the Brnovich decision that make it harder for plaintiffs to prove racial discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 
• Enshrines judicial precedent and legislative history to strengthen efforts to draw majority-minority districts under the parameters of the Voting Rights Act.  
• Restores the federal preclearance regime that the Supreme Court struck down in Shelby. The bill creates a new coverage formula that requires states with recent histories of voting rights violations.

• Takes aim at the federal courts by requiring judges to explain their reasoning in emergency rulings they take up on the so-called shadow docket, and tries to limit judges’ from relying solely on the proximity to the election in deciding emergency cases on election rules, known as the Purcell principle. 
• The Senate version of the law also includes the Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act, which provides greater federal protections for election workers against harassment and intimidation. 
• The Senate version further tacks on the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that strengthens voting rights and voter protections for voters in Indian Country. 

Why are Republicans against these bills that make voting easier to access, more transparent, and protected from fraud and discrimination? Is it because the current Republican party no longer stands for issues and principles that strengthen our democracy.  A white fear, racist agenda has become the platform on which Donald Trump and elected Republican officials now govern.  Suppressing access to the vote for Americans and illegally changing the results of elections they lose is the current, sole agenda of the GOP. Aligning with Trump’s assault on the American democracy by promoting the ” big lie” that Trump won the presidency is now their strategy to pursue power.

This threat to democracy is why President Biden is now in favor of changing the Senate rules to allow for a simple majority to pass voting rights or legislation. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are either bought by dark money, special interests, are naive, egomaniacal, anti-democracy, or simply not as intelligent as their constituents think. These Senators proclaim to support voting rights and yet refuse to allow a rule change that would give the democrats majority to pass the law? These senators are proclaiming their positions on the filibuster are more important than protecting democracy and strengthening the presidency of Joe Biden.

History validates that protecting voting rights has garnered bipartisan support since the 1800s.

1869
Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote.

1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, permanently barring barriers to political participation by Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment giving African Amacial and ethnic minorities, prohibiting any election practice that denies the right to vote on account of race or ethnicity

1970

President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

1975
President Gerald Ford signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

1982
President Ronald Reagan signed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights

2006
Congress extended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years.

Republican presidents have supported voting rights throughout history, however, with Mitch McConnell’s commitment to political power over principles and Trump’s ascending to the authoritarian leadership of the degraded Republican party.

Members of Congress who now oppose voter protection legislation supported it in the past. What has changed is the Republican party embodies the low character and corrupt values of Donald Trump, and now the party is chosen over the country.

Toxic, hypocritical Senator Mitch McConnell answered Biden’s impassioned plea for the continuation of years of bipartisan support of voting rights by saying, the speech was “un- presidential and incoherent.” Despite McConnell’s obvious dislike for Trump, it appears he has embraced the defeated ex-president’s penchance for lying and gaslighting. Biden’s speech was widely praised as emotionally sincere, patriotic and offers a plan to secure federal protection for easy access to vote for every American. The hypocrisy of McConnell is legendary and will dominate his corrupt legacy. He continues to support the most un-presidential president in U.S. history and yet has the nerve to call Bidenc out for criticizing the GOP Senate for turning it’s back on protecting voting rights. Mitch is shrewdly corrupt, but it baffles this blog to hear him referred to as brilliant. He is a poor communicator with a monotone voice that ignores facts, reality and historical precedent.