On Thursday (March 4), former First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Republican efforts to impose voting restrictions across the country as “unpatriotic.”
“Unfortunately too many leaders are working to reverse that progress and make it harder for people with every right to vote to cast a ballot,” Obama said in a statement. “Our democracy remains under attack by the partisan and unpatriotic actions of those at the state level who are doing everything they can to curtail access to the ballot box.”
The Becoming author made her statements through the voting rights advocacy group she co-founded, When We All Vote.
Hundreds of GOP-sponsored legislation measures are making their way through state governments that would impose a variety of voting restrictions including ID requirements, limits on early voting, and added barriers to absentee ballots.
According to the Huffington Post, lawmakers in some of the battlegrounds from the 2020 election are pushing the bills after record turnout from Black and other marginalized groups helped get President Joe Biden elected, and flip control of the US Senate.
To justify the new restrictions, Republican lawmakers are continuing to perpetuate the baseless claims of widespread voter fraud pushed by former President Donald Trump.
On Wednesday (March 3), the US House of Representatives passed the For the People Act, a pivotal law that would streamline voter registration, and put safeguards in place to protect voters’ rights.
The former First Lady tweeted about the bill’s passage, and urged the Senate to approve the law as well.
Obama ended her post with this message: “There is nothing more important to the health and future of our democracy than safeguarding the right to vote.”
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