see url:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/corporate-america-wading-voting-rights-brawl-here-s-why-n1262974
see url:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/election-bills-surge-nationwide-47-states-consider-restrictions-n1262697
Election bills surge nationwide as 47 states consider
restrictions. New measures limiting access have been signed into law in
Georgia, Iowa, Arkansas and Utah.
see full report...Notice the states where the changes are aimed at...
Quote<<<
Voting rights advocate Nsé Ufot has been fighting for a week like this
all year.
For months, more than a half-dozen activist groups, including her own
New Georgia Project, had urged business interests to denounce
Republican-led efforts to restrict voting access in Georgia, she said.
Billboards had gone up across the state that parodied corporate slogans,
urging action. Advocates projected campaigns on the side of a hotel
hosting attendees for the NBA All-Star weekend in early March.
The companies had offered cautious statements, and what Ufot calls
"hand-wringing" and "shoulder shrugging." That is, until Wednesday, when
Atlanta-based Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola issued forceful condemnations
of Georgia's new restrictive voting law, enacted last week. From there,
corporate criticism of Republican voting bills seemed to spread like
wildfire — moving across state lines and morphing into a national trend
that activists say finally reflects the urgency of the sheer number of
restrictions under consideration across the U.S.
"There’s a clarity about January 6 that people get, that that was an
attack on our democracy," Ufot said. "If you understand that the attack
on the Electoral College vote was unpatriotic and anti-democratic, then
you need to continue down that same logical street until you get to
these 360-plus bills in 47 states that are trying to make it more
difficult for Americans to vote."
Major corporations' foray into the election policy debate, which experts
called unusual, comes as Republicans across the country work to advance
hundreds of restrictions, changes that voting rights advocates and civil
rights groups argue would disproportionately affect voters of color.
By March 24, lawmakers had introduced 361 restrictive election bills in
47 legislatures, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice
at New York University, which has been tracking the legislation. That's
108 more than in the center's last count, on Feb. 19, a 43 percent
increase.
GOP lawmakers say these bills are needed to improve public confidence in
the results, even as they cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020
elections themselves. By all non-partisan accounts, the 2020 election
was secure and the results accurate, despite former President Donald
Trump's repeated and false claims otherwise. His own attorney general,
William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and
the then-president's legal efforts to overturn the results failed in
courtrooms around the country.
Advocates said the last year of speaking up — about civil rights and the
pandemic particularly — primed companies to get involved on this issue, too.
“This week was really the week that corporate America stepped back up,”
said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, vice president for development at the Brennan
Center. “And really, I think was called to task to put their money where
their mouth was for all the things they said they were for in 2020.”
>>>End of Quote
