This is yet another setback for Joe Biden. The senators challenged, Thursday, January 19, his great electoral reform with which the President of the United States promised to protect access to the ballot boxes for African-Americans. The organization of elections is more than ever a hot topic in America.
Ten months before the mid-term legislative elections, the Democratic leader wanted, with his reform, to establish a common framework for all states on the organization of federal elections. He thus intended to cancel a series of restrictions adopted in fifteen conservative states since the 2020 presidential election.
“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate has failed to defend our democracy. I’m disappointed – but I’m not discouraged”, reacted the American president on Twitter.
I am profoundly disappointed that the Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy. I am disappointed — but I am… https://t.co/paGhiUuwQI
Sinema and Manchin defected again
According to NGOs, these restrictions deliberately discriminate against black voters, the largest number of whom voted for Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential election. strong argument with their voters, many of whom still believe that the last presidential election was “volley” à Donald Trump.
In the Senate, the Democrats were desperate to pass this great electoral reform of Joe Biden to undo these provisions before the midterm elections.
But the Republican opposition, headwind against this legislation, which according to her would entrust the Democrats with control of the polls across the country, united on Wednesday evening. It thus deprived the Democrats of the “supermajority” of sixty votes required in the Senate to close the debates and submit the text to the vote.
In a final attempt, the Democratic staff tried to push the text with its only votes via a so-called “nuclear” option, but which the most moderate of this camp, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, opposed.
During a press conference marking his first year in the White House, Joe Biden, however, stressed that he had no “exhausted all options” to protect African Americans’ access to the vote, without giving further details.
