Politics

Biden Claims The GOP Is Trying To Ban Black Votes ‘From Even Counting’

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Samuel Nathan Contributor
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President Joe Biden claimed Monday that Republicans want to disenfranchise black voters in a speech at the White House celebrating Black History Month.

“We’re protecting our countries threshold liberties, the sacred right to vote, which I’ve never seen under such attack. You know, it’s always made it harder for blacks to vote. But this is trying to be able to figure out how to keep the black vote, when it occurs, from even counting,” Biden claimed during his speech. It appears that Biden was referring to the various voter integrity measures being passed around the country by Republicans at the state level.

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During the speech, Biden also called on Congress to pass his election bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would nationalize federal election laws by allowing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to strike down state-level election procedures if it deems them to be discriminatory. Critics argue the bills are a subversion of the Constitution, which requires the federal government to defer to a given state’s voting laws.

Biden and the Democrats have repeatedly used hyperbolic language to describe Republican voter integrity measures. On multiple occasions, Biden referred to these measures as the new “Jim Crow,” implying that Republicans are racists who wish to prevent black Americans from voting.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in 2021 that the GOP’s election integrity efforts are the “worst challenge to our Democracy since the Civil War.”

The most contested part of Republican-supported voter integrity policies is voter ID requirements, which is supported by 80% of Americans, according to Monmouth.

The voter integrity debate made national headlines in Georgia in 2021. Major League Baseball boycotted the state’s voting law by moving its All-Star Game out of Atlanta. (RELATED: Georgia’s New Voting Law — Myths And Facts)

This isn’t the first time Biden has made racially-charged statements. In 2012, he claimed that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wanted to put black Americans back in chains.”