Washington D.C. – (January 20, 2022) — The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) is deeply disappointed that the U.S. Senate has failed to act or even debate the need to protect voting rights around the country. We urged Senators to pass the John R. Lewis Freedom to Vote Act because it is designed to ensure that voters can freely cast their ballots in fairly drawn districts and that they are protected from discriminatory restrictions. Nationwide, there are 34 new laws and counting that restrict access to the ballot box and unwind improvements to the access made during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Nearly all of them were pushed through state legislatures in party-line votes, in a tragic retread of the state-level election interference that necessitated the original Voting Rights Act.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who strongly prefer to vote early and by mail, will be among the groups that will suffer undue difficulties in participating in our democracy based on the Senate’s failure to act today. Despite our disappointment, we will continue to fight to ensure that the right to vote is protected for all Americans, regardless of who they are, how they choose to vote, or for whom they wish to cast their ballots. There can be no democracy if all the people cannot make their voices heard.