The Voting Rights Conflict

In the United States, it’s generally understood that the easier it is to vote, the better Democrats will do, and the harder it is to vote, the better Republicans will do. In the 2020 elections Democrats gained control of Congress by a very narrow margin. Republicans hope to take back control in the elections next year.

Republicans control the legislatures in most swing states, and they are trying to make it harder to vote by enacting restrictive legislation. Democrats in Congress would like to enact legislation making it easer to vote, countering Republican efforts at the state level, but to have such legislation pass, they need to eliminate the filibuster, which makes it necessary to have a supermajority in the senate to get any such legislation enacted. Unfortunately, at least two Democratic senators are opposed to ending the filibuster, so it looks like, by the time for next year’s elections, it will on balance be harder to vote in the United States, increasing the chances that the Republicans will take back control of Congress.