President Joe Biden on July 13 disparaged laws and proposals that proponents say are aimed at strengthening election security, claiming they’re “racially discriminatory.”
Biden said the election reform bill signed by Georgia’s governor was a “vicious anti-voting law” and claimed Texas Republicans are proposing “to allow partisan poll watchers to intimidate voters and imperil impartial poll workers.”
“This year alone, 17 states have enacted—not just proposed, but enacted—28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote, not to mention—and catch this—nearly 400 additional bills Republican members of the state legislatures are trying to pass,” Biden said.
“The 21st century Jim Crow assault is real. It’s unrelenting, and we’re going to challenge it vigorously.”
“We’ve got to shore up our election system and address the threats of election subversion, not just from abroad—which I spent time with [Russian President Vladimir Putin talking about]—but from home,” he said.
The president was speaking from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Democrats largely oppose any further examination of the 2020 election. Many oppose virtually any election security measures, such as requiring identification, even though some of those measures enjoy broad support from the American public.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, responded to Biden’s speech by alleging it was part of the president’s “continued assault on election integrity and common-sense measures supported by a wide majority of Americans.”
Texas Rep. Lacey Hull, a Republican, said on July 14 that the bill being protested by Democrats “does not harm voting.”
“This bill will make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” she said on “Fox & Friends.”
Biden backed the play, and Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet with the legislators this week, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One as the president flew to Pennsylvania.
Former President Donald Trump accused Biden of rushing to Pennsylvania to stop the election investigation that state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, triggered earlier this month.
“Why are they so concerned that a President, who never goes anywhere, would hop onto beautiful Air Force One and head to Philadelphia if it were an honest election?” Trump said in a statement. “Why not let the audit go forward and make everybody, on both sides, happy?”