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Statement by President
Biden on the Attack on the Right to Vote in Georgia
More Americans voted in the
2020 elections than any election in our nation’s history. In
Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power
of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff
election for the U.S. Senate seats in January. Recount after
recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity
and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic
process.
Yet instead of celebrating
the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on
the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead
rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right
to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by
Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant
attack on the Constitution and good conscience. Among the
outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours
early so working people can’t cast their vote after their
shift is over. It adds rigid restrictions on casting
absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to
vote to countless voters. And it makes it a crime to provide
water to voters while they wait in line – lines Republican
officials themselves have created by reducing the number of
polling sites across the state, disproportionately in Black
neighborhoods.
This is Jim Crow in the 21^st
Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional
obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the
For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans
access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred
right to vote.
And I will take my case to
the American people – including Republicans who joined the
broadest coalition of voters ever in this past election to
put country before party.
If you have the best ideas,
you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.
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