The Right to Vote

Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis speak to thousands of moral activists during the Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly & Moral March On Washington DC & To The Polls on Pennsylvania Ave on June 29, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Repairers of the Breach)

​The Right to Vote
 
Yesterday marked the 59th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the law that finally guaranteed the right to vote for millions of people who had wrongfully been denied their ability to participate in democracy.
And yet the law has been under attack since 2013, when the Supreme Court gutted its key provisions. Since 2020, there have been more than 1,000 voter suppression bills filed and promulgated throughout this country – mainly in the American South.
While Black people are the targets of much of this voter suppression, it’s important to remember that voter suppression impacts a broad array of people – from women and students to immigrants and poor white people. We all have something to lose when we lose the right to vote.
It is the right to vote, after all, that gives us the power to change this country. It is not a coincidence that our political leaders have for too long ignored the needs of the over 135 million Americans who are poor and low-income. They say that poor people don’t vote. But when we ask poor and low-wage voters why they don’t go to the polls at the same rate as other groups, they tell us that it’s because nobody talks to them. 
On the 59th anniversary of the VRA, we started our nationwide voter outreach effort that aims to educate and mobilize 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters. 
The goal is to encourage these voters to support candidates who are committed to a Third Reconstruction Agenda that aims to eliminate poverty as the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. 
Poor and low-wage voters are the sleeping giant of this election – this powerful voting block can shift election outcomes in every so-called swing state. By waking this sleeping giant, we can ensure that those in power center the needs of poor and low-wage people in this country.
 
Also see. ​https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/aft-endorsement-of-kamala-harris-for-president

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