Voting Rights: For the People

Lifelong civil rights champion Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) delivers a powerful and deeply personal account of the history and importance of voting in America. Offering his mother’s final words, “Don’t let them take our votes away,” only a year from her passing, he vows to fight “to the death” to protect an inalienable American right which still requires legal protection. Referencing North Carolina’s repeated, targeted efforts to restrict voting, which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declared “intentional racial discrimination” with “only meager justification,” Rep. Cummings denounces claims that such discrimination is a historical relic. When asked for comment, Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn presents the range of underhanded voter suppression tactics- proof of citizenship laws, voter ID laws, and early voting restrictions, among others- as a solution addressing the nonexistent problem of voter fraud.