April 7, 2021
Page 9
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O PINION
Worst Attack on Voting Since Jim Crow
We need to
make voting
easier, not
harder
P hyllis r iChardson
Last November, despite a
global pandemic, voter intim-
idation, and an unprecedented
disinformation campaign, a re-
cord number of Americans cast
a ballot in the 2020 election.
Expanded voting by mail,
no-excuse absentee voting,
curbside voting, and early vot-
ing made the ballot box more
accessible. But now, Republi-
can lawmakers in 43 states are
introducing hundreds of restric-
tive “voting rights” bills to roll
back these measures.
In my home state of Georgia,
Republicans have introduced a
package of restrictive bills to in-
crease red tape, roll back voting
rights, and silence the voices of
millions of voters. These attacks
are unmistakably in response to
the state’s record voter turnout
to elect President Joe Biden and
by
Senators Rafael Warnock and
Jon Ossoff.
The 11 bills in Georgia are
grounded in baseless and racist
claims of election irregularities.
They aim to silence the voices
of voters of color, young peo-
ple, and older voters by direct-
ly repealing the measures that
made last election cycle the
most inclusive ever.
Experts put it bluntly: Geor-
gia’s current efforts to restrict
voting access are “the most sus-
tained effort” to silence voters
“since the Jim Crow era.”
Just like during Jim Crow,
Georgia is taking special aim
at Black voters, who overcame
decades of draconian voting
measures to demonstrate their
power at the ballot box last No-
vember.
GOP lawmakers have pro-
posed a ban on Sunday early
voting, for example — a direct
attack on “souls to the polls”
events, which usher congre-
gations of primarily Black
churches to polling places after
services. They’re even trying to
prohibit giving food and water
to people waiting in line to vote,
even after many Black voters
were forced to wait in 10 or 11
hour lines in the last election.
Even if you don’t live in
Georgia, these unprecedented
assaults on voting rights are
most likely happening in your
state, too.
As of March, the Brennan
Center calculated that GOP
lawmakers had introduced 253
such bills in 43 states. Many of
these bills resemble Georgia’s
proposals — enacting even
stricter voter ID requirements,
slashing voter registration op-
portunities, and limiting vote by
mail. Others go even further by
enabling aggressive voter roll
purging or even overturning
election results altogether.
No matter who they vot-
ed for, an overwhelming ma-
jority of Americans support
pro-voter policies — including
expanding early voting, enact-
ing online and automatic voter
registration, allowing universal
absentee voting, and including a
pre-paid postage stamp on mail-
in ballots. The majority of us
agree that we need to improve
our elections to ensure secure,
accurate voting for every eligi-
ble resident in every state.
Throughout our nation’s his-
tory, we’ve fought to expand
voting access to all eligible res-
idents, but a handful of politi-
cians want to erase this legacy.
To move forward together, we
must ensure that every eligible
American has the freedom to
cast a ballot and have it counted
accurately so that the outcomes
of our elections reflect the will
of the people.
To start, we must reject
state-level anti-voter policies
and pass common sense fed-
eral legislation like the For the
People Act (HR1) and the John
Lewis Voting Rights Act (HR4),
which will not only restore the
voter protections laid out in the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 but
strengthen those protections
and and our democracy.
By expanding access to vot-
ing, we can ensure that our
elected officials are accountable
for delivering real solutions to
the people. Tell your senators:
Fix our broken democracy and
pass the “For The People Act.”
Phyllis Richardson is a vol-
unteer leader at the Sierra Club
Georgia Chapter and the gov-
ernmental affairs director at
Georgia WAND, a woman of
color-led organization for so-
cial justice. Op-ed distributed
by OtherWords.org.