"Democracy is in jeopardy. Too many Americans don't recognize the urgency of the moment," said the interim president of the Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Wade Henderson, after the U.S. Senate failed to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican obstruction on Wednesday to debate the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
In response to this, Henderson expressed regret during a session with the media held by Ethnic Media Services that the Lewis Act, which seeks to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was not approved.
He recalled that between January and September of this year, 19 states have enacted 33 new laws restricting the freedom to vote. "We must never forget that Republicans voted in favor of authorizing the Voting Rights Act, but 98 did not."
"This fight is about what is at stake for American values. And the component of not recognizing the fundamental premise of our Constitution that every voice and every vote must be counted. Now, the window is closing, but there is still time to act. I will be pushing each and every day to protect it," he said.
He acknowledged that "democracy faces unprecedented challenges in modern times."
Sean Morales Doyle, acting director of the Democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, reaffirmed that democracy in the country is at a critical moment. “We are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy. I think we have all seen that, as it came to fruition in a way that was terrifying on January 6 of this year.”
"We saw the threat to our democracy as a form of insurrection motivated by the big lie that our elections were rigged and that there was rampant misconduct," he explained.
In this regard, he pointed out that such behaviors fuel "this wave of restrictive laws."
Part of that, he explained, has been seen in the redistricting, where states have drawn maps that will dilute and weaken the power of communities of color at the ballot box.
While in some states the gap in turnout between voters of color and white voters has widened, rising to its highest levels in a quarter-century. “It’s expanding rapidly in some states. The impacts of all of these things are very real.”
This gap, he said, has widened despite record turnout at the polls in 2020, caused by the current political reality.
“We are facing this wave by combating these attacks with fewer tools available than we have in the past,” due to the 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder that weakened the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 to ensure that state and local governments do not pass laws or policies that deny Americans an equal right to vote based on race.
The expert stressed that there are federal courts that are often not friendly to the cause of voting rights, especially for people of color, and that "they are not a good place to fight this battle."
However, he said, the fight is not over. “We still have tools available to us. But we have fewer than we had right when we were faced with these unprecedented taxes. And that’s why I say we’re at a critical moment.”
In this regard, he explained that "all eyes are on Congress right now because we actually have two pieces of legislation that would help us overcome this movement that would take us in the right direction and that would give us the tools necessary to fight against these restrictive laws and attacks."
Those tools, he said, are the Freedom to Vote Act and the anti-African-American John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would set a floor for federal elections across the country.
For Jacqueline de León, a lawyer with the Native American Rights Fund, voting rights for the community she represents are no better off, as it is "unreasonably difficult to vote across reservations in the United States" because there are often no ballot boxes.
He explained that to access voting centers, natives often have to travel more than 100 miles on dirt roads, and because they have low resources, they lack access to vehicles to transport them.
He added that in Montana, after a lawsuit was settled in 2014, voter turnout increased from 30 to 70 percent. “Native people will vote if they are given a fair chance, but too often they are not given that chance.”
In addition, he said that homes on Native American reservations are not served. "They do not receive residential mail and the post offices are also far away and provide low-quality service.
"This makes registering to vote and voting by mail difficult and sometimes impossible. It's a situation that comes as a surprise to most Americans."
More surprising, she said, "is the overt racism that Native Americans continue to face when they try to vote," noting that there is a major problem with racism in border towns where Americans have to travel because they do not have polling stations on the reservation.
In the face of various acts of discrimination and even "gerrymandering" - a term referring to the manipulation of electoral districts in a territory, uniting, dividing or associating them, with the aim of producing a certain effect on the electoral results - he said, "we desperately need federal protections and reform of the right to vote in the Indian nation."
"We need these historic federal protections, just as urgently as we did in 1965, to protect us from states and counties that actively discriminate against Native Americans."
Laws like the John Lewis bill, he said, are critically important and must be passed to combat ongoing voter suppression.
John C. Yang, president and CEO of Asian American Advocates for Justice (AAJC), said the Voting Rights Act is of utmost importance to the community he represents, as it is the fastest-growing population in the country, increasing by more than 38 percent since the 2010 census, a situation that is also reflected at the polls.
He recalled that in the 2020 elections alone, there was an increase of more than 20 percent in voter participation, the largest increase compared to any other community compared to 2016.
“While we have seen this increase at the polls, we have also faced significant barriers to our ability to vote.”
But what does all this mean for Asian Americans when we're talking about voting rights? She asked, "It's not a partisan issue. For us, it's about making sure that every citizen who has the right to vote has the opportunity to do so in the most efficient and effective way."
She said the Asian American community is very diverse, and there are people of all political persuasions, “but we firmly believe that everyone’s voice matters and we must make sure that they have that ability to be heard. That is why any attempt to suppress those votes makes a difference for our community.”
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