Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke on Sunday in Selma, Alabama, and pushed back against voter IDs and other election integrity measures.
The official said that the same voting rights that protesters in 1965 demanded were under assault once more. During his Bloody Sunday speech, Garland said that since the court decisions nearly six decades ago, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative measures that made it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote to elect representatives of their choice.
Merrick Garland on Voting Rights
The official added that the measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult. They also include redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or non-partisan election administrators.
Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who is a native of Selma and now represents the city in Congress, reflected on her participation in Sunday's march during a Thursday press conference. She said that it was an honor to have the opportunity to walk back in time and remember what happened on Bloody Sunday, as per The Hill.
During that incident, hundreds of people were injured in the police attacks, which included stampedes of horses and brutal beatings. The violence and subsequent marches prompted the introduction of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation.
Sewell also commented on the legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act today, noting that old battles have been renewed. She argued that this was true not only for reproductive rights and freedoms but also for voting rights.
On the other hand, Garland said that the Supreme Court's and lower courts' decisions since 2006 have only weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The attorney general said that some have suggested giving state legislatures the power to set aside the choice of the vote themselves.
He argued that this was not the way that a representative democracy is supposed to work. Garland underscored the long and ongoing struggle to guarantee Black Americans and other people of color are able to vote, according to The Guardian.
Protecting Access to the Ballot
The attorney general noted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was already challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot.
He noted that these included those that are related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements. In response to Garland's comments, some conservatives and supporters of former United States President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement have criticized him.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, former Fox News producer Kyle Becker said that the attorney general made it clear that the Biden regime plans to "cheat" in the 2024 election. One user on the social media platform, known as Proud Elephant, said that the attorney general was lying again.
This was in response to Garland's efforts that election integrity efforts are "discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary." The co-owner of the Trending Politics news website, Collin Rugg, said that assuming Black people are not able to get a voter ID is "extremely racist," said Newsweek.
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