Stacey Abrams: ‘The Forerunners of Autocracy and Authoritarianism Begin with Limiting Who Has Access to the Right to Vote’

EXCERPT:

ABRAMS: “But I honestly want us to return to the fundamentals of voting. It's the people who lose. The forerunners of autocracy and authoritarianism begin with limiting who has access to the right to vote, making it so difficult that people give up and abandon the perquisites of democracy. That makes it much easier for those who do not intend to share power to hoard it. And so, I am deeply afraid, and it seems slightly hyperbolic, but in a nation like the U.S. with its changing demography, if the response to increased participation by communities of color, by young people, by women, if the response is to restrict their access and impede their participation, that is a very, very strong signal that we are heading in the wrong direction and that our democracy is not safe, it is not sound, and it is not resilient. We have to be better than that."