US senators inflicted a stinging setback on Joe Biden on Wednesday January 19 by burying his major electoral reform with which the president promised to protect access to the ballot box for African-Americans.
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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 framework that all states had to respect to organize federal elections in the United States.
And in doing so, cancel a series of restrictions adopted in fifteen conservative states since the 2020 presidential election.
According to NGOs, these restrictions deliberately discriminate against black voters, the majority who voted for Joe Biden in the last election.
In the Republican states, on the contrary, it is assured that these measures strengthen the security of the country's polls, a strong argument with their voters, many of whom still believe that the 2020 presidential election has been
"stolen"
from Donald Trump.
Read alsoIn ten months, Joe Biden disappointed a large part of Americans
Democrats in the Senate were desperate to pass Joe Biden's big electoral reform to undo those measures before the midterm elections.
But the Republican opposition, standing against this law which, according to it, 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 60 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 his press conference, however, Joe Biden stressed that he had not
"exhausted all options"
to protect African Americans' access to the vote, without giving further details.
