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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris visited the southern state of Georgia on Tuesday to promote the suffrage bill, which would deepen the federal government’s scope on elections but has stalled in the Senate.
President Biden defended the right to vote in free, fair and secure elections, free from party manipulation, while saying that the way to guarantee these rights is to approve two draft proposals submitted by Democrats. Mr Biden said: “In the coming days, when these bills are put to the vote, they will mark a turning point in this country,” the White House announced.
“Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know my attitude. I will not back down. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies, foreign or domestic. The question is, what will be the position of the United States Senate? ”
In a post on Twitter, President Biden later said, “History has never been good for those who have supported the oppression of voters in the face of suffrage. “And it will not be good for those who fail to protect the right to vote.” But Republicans in Congress have strongly opposed the move, saying each of the 50 U.S. states should continue to set its own rules, including voting schedule, early voting time before the traditional November vote, and to what extent it is allowed. postal voting.
In the 2020 presidential election, Democrat Biden defeated former President Donald Trump after a single term in the White House. Mr Biden won several states where voting time and schedule were extended by several days, postal voting was extended to limit the need for voters on election day to go to crowded polling stations during the pandemic. Democrats, through legislation backed by President Biden, want many of those changes to become permanent, including this year’s November election, which votes for 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate.
Numerous legislatures in Republican-controlled states restricted many of the changes approved last year for the 2020 election for fear that Democrats would gain a permanent electoral advantage if the rules were left in place. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schummer has set January 17, the day the United States honors Martin Luther King, as the deadline to pass the voting law, or else seek a review of Senate voting rules.
A White House spokesman said President Biden would support amending the Senate regulations, which would allow the opposing party to block any law that lacks 60 votes, in order for the suffrage bill to be passed. So far Democrats have not all been united in changing the Senate rules.
Activists defending the right to vote have expressed concern about a number of Republican-passed laws in states controlled by them, which activists say make the voting process more difficult. Following the defeat of former President Trump in the election and after his attempts to overturn the results, in the absence of evidence of manipulation, the laws have been changed in 19 states. Georgia, one of the defining states of the 2020 presidential election, was at the center of efforts to change the result, while in the middle of the vote count, President Trump asked a state election official to “find” enough votes to overthrow his loss.
Last year Republicans amended Georgia’s electoral laws, among other things, giving the State Electoral Commission the right to intervene in constituencies to replace election officials. This has added to concerns that the Republican-controlled commission could influence election officials and the certification process.
The bill prepared by the Democrats would create nationwide voting standards, thus repealing the laws of individual states. But to pass the bill, which Republicans oppose, they must change the rules of voting in the Senate, the so-called “filibuster,” where 41 senators can block any bill. Republicans have 50 seats in the 100-member Senate./VOA
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