President Obama, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, called on Congress to restore its former stronger self before court decision and state legislatures weakened it.
“In the abstract, at least, everybody believes in the right to vote,” he said. “In practice, we’ve still got problems.”
Some of the changes to the Voting Rights Act that have taken place in recent years, the president said, appear neutral on the surface but have the affect of discouraging people from voting.
Obama was specifically referring to a Supreme Court decision two years ago that voided part of the law requiring nine Southern states with a history of racial discrimination in administering their elections to win federal approval of any changes to their voting laws.
The decision led to states such as North Carolina and Texas to pass stricter voter ID laws requiring people to bring identification with them to the pools.
If those practices are allowed to go unanswered, “then over time, the hard won battles of 50 years ago erode. And our democracy erodes,” he told a group of civil rights and faith leaders, as well as voting rights activists and state and local officials attending the event in the South Court auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.
With Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., famed civil rights leader, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett looking on from the audience, Obama recalled his message earlier this year at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches.
“We’re glad you’re here members of Congress, but we’ll be in an even more celebratory mood if you go back to Washington and reaffirm America’s commitment to what was fought for here at this bridge,” he said.
Republican-sponsored voter ID laws aimed at combating voter fraud have weakened protections in the law, he said.
And he asserted that there are almost “no instances” of people showing up to vote in somebody else’s name, what the voter ID laws were designed to stop.
“It turns out it’s just not a common crime … almost nobody wakes up and says, ‘I’m gonna go vote in somebody else’s name,” he said to applause.
He also chided a large segment of the American public for disenfranchising themselves by failing to exercise their right to vote.
“The reason that the voting rate in the last midterm election was 30 percent was not attributable to the voter ID laws,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that far more people disenfranchise themselves … by not getting involved.”
In closing, he announced that he is making Sept. 22 National Voter Registration Day, and would encourage groups to fan out across the country to try to get everybody to register to vote.
