The president criticizes the tightening of voting rules in some states.
President Joe Biden will make a statement on the voting rights situation in Philadelphia on Tuesday, calling attempts to deprive some Americans of the right to vote “authoritarian,” the White House said on Monday.
According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Biden “will present the moral arguments in favor of why denial of the right to vote is a form of suppression and a form of silencing,” and will talk about the steps that the administration plans to take to protect voting rights.
Biden’s speech will focus on the ongoing “flurry of voting obstruction laws based on a dangerous and discredited conspiracy theory that culminated in an attack on the Capitol.”
This year, Republican governors in the states of Arizona, Florida, and Iowa signed laws introducing new restrictions on voting, and the state legislatures of Pennsylvania and Texas are trying to promote similar initiatives that, according to the Biden administration, are aimed at minority voters.
Biden will condemn attempts to restrict the right to vote, calling them “authoritarian” and “anti-American” initiatives, Psaki said. She added that the president plans to make arguments in favor of passing laws in Congress to protect the right to vote and create a system of voter education to combat “the worst challenge to democracy since the Civil War.”
