LWVUS joins DFAD Coalition Urging Senate to Pass Freedom to Vote Act 

Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Chairwoman Klobuchar, and Senators Kaine, King, Manchin, Merkley, Padilla, Tester, and Warnock:

We, the undersigned members of the Declaration for American Democracy (DFAD) coalition, which includes organizations from the labor, civil rights, environmental, faith, social justice, reproductive rights, and many other communities, representing millions of Americans, write in support of the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747). This important legislation will protect access to the ballot, end partisan gerrymandering, counter undemocratic and dangerous election subversion efforts, and help to eliminate the undue influence of dark money in our elections.

We’re thankful for your determined leadership on this issue and for the important work of Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, For the People Act lead sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley, and Sens. Joe Manchin, Raphael Warnock, Alex Padilla, Tim Kaine, Jon Tester, and Angus King for developing this commonsense path forward.

This revised legislation, which incorporates important feedback from state and local election officials, will ensure no matter which party you support or where you live, your voice and vote will be heard, counted, and protected. Specifically, the Freedom to Vote Act would:

• Respond directly to new laws around the country aimed squarely at making it harder for people to vote--which will disproportionately impact communities of color--by setting commonsense standards for safe, convenient practices like early voting, automatic voter registration and vote-by-mail.
• Protect the integrity of our elections by adding new safeguards against election subversion, such as partisan efforts to remove local election administrators and harassment of poll workers.
• Ban partisan and racial gerrymandering, preventing states from adopting congressional maps based unduly on voters’ political party or race.
• Reduce the power of special interests in our elections by ending dark money and strengthening our campaign finance laws.

If enacted, the Freedom to Vote Act will be the most significant, comprehensive anti-corruption and voting rights bill in generations. This far-reaching legislation is also essential to counteract the many voter suppression and subversion laws enacted in nineteen states across the nation.

This bill is a major step forward and we look forward to working with you to further strengthen our country’s voting systems throughout this process. We urge you to work with your colleagues to do whatever it takes to get it signed into law.

Thank you again for your steadfast commitment to these vitally important issues.

Signed,

See Attached for Ful List of Signatories