A dispute over the right to vote is raging in the United States. The Democrats around Joe Biden wanted to abolish restrictions – in favor of younger and non-white voters. But the project was rejected.
American President Joe Biden’s Democrats have suffered a severe setback in a legislative proposal for far-reaching electoral reform. The reason was the resistance of the Republican Party. The Republicans in the US Senate blocked on Tuesday evening (local time) by a procedural rule of the parliamentary chamber that the project can be voted on at all. That would have required 60 of the 100 votes. All 50 Democrats were in favor, all 50 Republicans were against.
The move was directed against restrictions on the right to vote that more than a dozen Republican-dominated states have planned or enacted. These aim in particular to limit the options for postal voting and early voting. According to the Democrats, the Republicans want to make voting more difficult for younger and non-white voters, who often vote for Democratic candidates.
Joe Biden speaks of an “unprecedented attack on our democracy”
Shortly before, the White House had once again expressly backed the project. “Democracy is in danger here, in America,” said a statement on Tuesday. “The right to vote – a sacred right in this country – is being attacked with an intensity and aggressiveness that we have not seen for a long time.” At the beginning of the month, Biden himself spoke of a “truly unprecedented attack on our democracy”. The majority leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, announced after the vote on Tuesday that his party would pursue the project. “We won’t let it die.”
The Democrats accuse Republicans of using unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the presidential election last November as an excuse to restrict the right to vote. Republican Donald Trump, who lost the election to Biden, claims to this day that he was fraudulently deprived of his victory. Trump’s camp has failed with dozens of lawsuits against the results and to date has presented no evidence of fraud.
Biden’s Democrats control 50 seats in the Senate, or exactly half. If there is a stalemate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ex officio President of the Senate, can help the Democrats win. The so-called filibuster procedure enables a minority in the Senate to block many bills proposed by the majority. This rule, which has been in effect for more than 100 years in principle, states that in most bills, 60 of the 100 senators must approve an end to the debate in order for the actual vote to take place.
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