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Hi friend --
GOP Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana had Stacey Abrams speak during a Senate hearing on voter rights -- all so he could talk down to her, repeatedly cut her off, and ignore her reasons for fighting against the obviously racist voter suppression laws Kemp has passed in Georgia. And we'll continue to see more of this as Republicans desperately fight for voter suppression.
So what does the bill that Stacey Abrams is fighting in Georgia do?
- Shortens the federal runoff period from 9 weeks to 4 weeks
- Restricts the time a voter can request and return an absentee ballot application
- Requires that a voter surrenders their driver's license or some other form of identification in order to participate in the absentee ballot process -- making Georgia only the 4th state in the nation with such a restrictive measure
- Eliminates over 300 hours of ballot dropbox availability
- Bans nearly all out-of-precinct votes
- Restricts the hours of operation for early voting by 4 hours, limiting those times strictly to regular business hours
Kennedy knows that these provisions discriminate against the right to vote of Black and Brown Americans -- that's what Kennedy and the rest of the GOP want.
Stacey Abrams and others are fighting back against these racist bills. So far, 47 states have introduced bills to restrict the right to vote, and that's why Democrats in Congress have introduced the For The People Act to fight back.
The For the People Act will supersede the racist voter restriction bills that lawmakers across the country have introduced by setting national standards on voting rights, including:
- National no-excuse voting by mail
- Requiring that states transmit absentee ballots to all registered voters
- Requiring at least 14 days of early voting
- Requiring automatic voter registration as well as same day voter registration
But the For The People Act faces an uphill climb in the Senate. If we don't eliminate the filibuster, all of our efforts on voting rights reforms will fail because the GOP won't let this bill reach the floor. President Biden, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren all want to see the filibuster eliminated, and we are so close to doing it, but Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are standing in the way.
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Friend, thank you for once again for standing with us in our fight. We could never accomplish what we need to without your help, and we are proud every day to have you by our side.
WDTO Team
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