News

This Week in the Fight to Vote • November 16 – 22

By Chris deLaubenfels, Director of Policy and Communications, Let America Vote

Voting rights in the Democratic debate

We finally heard from several candidates on voting rights in Wednesday’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Atlanta. This was the first time moderators have asked a question about the right to vote. Here is what we heard from several candidates:

Cory Booker tackled voter suppression in Georgia: “This is a voting issue. This is a voter suppression issue… the heartbeat bill here opposed by over 70 percent of Georgians is the result from voter suppression.”

Pete Buttigieg pointed out how it affects our democracy: “We have politicians picking out their voters rather than the other way around. That compounding with what is being done to restrict the right to vote means that our democracy is not worthy of the name.”

Amy Klobuchar discussed the impact of voter suppression tactics: If “we did something about gerrymandering, and we stopped the voting purges, and did something significant about making sure we don’t have money in politics from the outside, Stacey Abrams would be governor of this state right now.”

And Bernie Sanders said it plain and clear, voting is a right: “What we need to do, simple and straightforward, in every state in this country through the federal government, if you are 18, you have a right to vote, end of discussion.”

We hope to continue to hear more from the candidates on voting rights on the campaign trail!

Fighting voter suppression in Wisconsin

This week, an advocacy organization filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin challenging parts of its voter ID law. The suit challenges the restrictions placed on students attempting to use student IDs to vote. All eligible voters should be able to vote and we need to continue to fight voter suppression in all its forms!

Get everyone you know registered to vote

This week, MTV announced that it will be revving up its efforts to get out the vote in 2020. MTV’s “+1 the Vote” program helped turn out an unprecedented amount of young voters in 2020 and is going to further increase its efforts to improve turn out in next year’s elections. We all need to do all we can to increase voter turnout. When the people vote; Democrats win.

This week’s must read

In the wake of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin blaming voter fraud for his defeat, the Brennan Center did a great job of summarizing why the GOP’s boy that cried voter fraud excuse is just make believe. Widespread voting fraud is a myth and it’s important to remember that!