US senators dealt a stinging setback for Joe Biden on Wednesday by burying his key electoral reforms that the president had promised to protect African-American access to the polls.
Organizing elections is a hot topic in America more than ever.
Ten months before the midterm elections, the Democratic leader, through his reform, wanted to establish a framework that all states must respect to organize federal elections in the United States.
In doing so, he reverses a series of restrictions that have been adopted in fifteen county states since the 2020 presidential election.
According to the NGOs, these restrictions intentionally discriminate against black voters, the majority who voted for Joe Biden in the last election.
In Republican states, on the contrary, these measures are sure to enhance the security of the country’s ballot boxes, a strong argument with their voters, many of whom still believe the 2020 presidential election is “stolen” from Donald Trump.
Senate Democrats were desperate to pass Joe Biden’s major electoral reform to undo those measures before the midterm elections.
But the Republican opposition, which stood against the bill, under which it would task Democrats with control of polls across the country, united Wednesday night.
It thus deprived the Democrats of the “super majority” of 60 votes required in the Senate to close debates and bring the text to a vote.
In a last-ditch effort, the Democratic staff tried to push the text with votes only via the so-called “nuclear” option, but the more moderate in this camp, Kirsten Senema and Joe Manchin, opposed it.
But during his press conference, Joe Biden stressed that he had not “exhausted all options” to protect African-American access to the vote, without giving further details.
