People For Member,
Last week, Georgia passed – and GA Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law – one of the worst, most restrictive voter suppression laws in the country … a true resurgence of Jim Crow in modern America.
Our job is clear: 1) we need to make sure we mobilize an intense and lasting backlash among the very voters the Far Right is targeting with their voter suppression tactics, and 2) we need to pass federal legislation to stop these state level attacks on voting in their tracks.
People For is waging a massive campaign to protect the vote by educating and mobilizing impacted voters and by PASSING bills like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in Congress – two bills which would block the worst of the Georgia Jim Crow law. But we’re still nearly $12,000 short of our critical end-of-quarter goal to fund this work – and our deadline is TODAY.
Please renew your support with a donation right away to defend democracy and voting rights>>
The underlying racism in what the Far Right is doing in the states is not even subtle.
For instance, the Georgia bill targets “Souls to the Polls” Sunday voting traditions by Black churchgoers during election runoffs and even makes it a crime to offer bottles of water to voters who are waiting outside in hours-long lines to cast their ballots – and we know those long lines typically occur in under-resourced Black and brown voting precincts.
And even last week’s bill signing event in Georgia told the story of Jim Crow’s ugly resurgence:
While Governor Brian Kemp signed the voter suppression bill, sitting under the picture of a former slave plantation and surrounded by a group comprised of all white men for his photo op, police forcibly ARRESTED a Black state legislator, Rep. Park Cannon – a member of People For’s Young Elected Officials Network. Rep. Cannon was physically dragged out of the building even though she was not resisting or doing anything other than exercising her rights (the whole incident was captured on video that has already been seen millions of times).
Of course, Georgia isn’t the only state that’s aggressively trying to suppress the vote of its Black and brown citizens … that’s clamping down on early voting and vote by mail … making it harder to register to vote … or looking for ways for state officials to play games with election results being reported out of counties.
More than 250 bills restricting voting have been introduced in 43 states this year. Some, like the Georgia bill, have passed and there are others that will as well, despite our best efforts in the states.
But we can STOP these assaults with landmark voting rights legislation at the federal level! As the Brennan Center, which is tracking the state legislation, reports, passage of the For the People Act would thwart virtually every one of these voter suppression bills!
It’s up to all of us to fight back. To STOP this bigotry and regression to pre-civil rights America. And to defend the People’s right to vote.
Thank you so much for being part of this movement and for everything you do.
-- Zach, Sarah, Diallo, Rio and the whole People For team
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