WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden will call efforts to strip the right to vote from some Americans “authoritarian” in a speech on Tuesday, the White House said on Monday.
Biden “will lay out the moral case for why denying the right to vote is a form of suppression and a form of silencing,” and discuss steps the administration plans to take to shore up voting rights, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Biden’s speech in Philadelphia will address the ongoing “onslaught of voter suppression laws based on a dangerous and discredited conspiracy theory that culminated in an assault on our capitol,” she said.
Republican governors of Arizona, Florida and Iowa have signed new voting restrictions this year, while state legislatures in Pennsylvania and Texas are trying to advance similar measures that the Biden administration and Democrats say target minority voters.
Biden will also “decry efforts to strip the right to vote as authoritarian and anti-American,” Psaki said, adding that the president plans to make the case for passing laws in Congress and building a voter education system to fight “the worst challenge to our democracy since the Civil War.”
(Reporting by Jeff MasonWriting by Doina Chiacu and Heather TimmonsEditing by Franklin Paul and Peter Graff)
