Re: “Congress, follow Washington’s lead on voting rights and pass the For the People Act” [July 18, Opinion]:
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is correct: The rest of the country should look to Washington, where voting is easy, convenient, secure, and the turnouts are high.
Unfortunately, many of the states in the South and Midwest look the opposite way. Instead of encouraging turnout, those states are making voting more difficult. I cringe at their long lines, their few drop boxes and shorter voting windows that we Washingtonians would not permit.
It’s hard not to be cynical regarding these new voter-restriction laws that easily outnumber the actual cases of voter fraud committed in those states, particularly after Republican appointees to the Supreme Court gutted federal oversight of the very states that have a history of voter suppression. Republican lawmakers have wasted little time in their efforts to make laws that one federal court said targeted Black Americans “with almost surgical precision.”
I wish that these Republican-led states that call special sessions to address problems that don’t exist would show that same zeal to address the problems that do exist: COVID-19 variants, gun violence, climate change and opioid addiction, to name of few.
Though conservative by nature, I, too, think it’s time to rethink the filibuster and pass new federal voting protections.
Bruce Johnson, Seattle