Biden calls on GOP to protect voting rights 'for God's sake' in fiery address

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In a scorching address Tuesday, President Biden called on Republican lawmakers to protect voting rights and stop supporting laws that tighten rules for voting.

"I’m asking my Republican friends in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up for God’s sake and help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote," Biden said from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

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The president’s speech follows a national trend throughout red states to enforce tighter restrictions on voting laws following the 2020 general election -- in which some Republicans have suggested mail-in voting left room for fraud. 

"The 2020 election was the most scrutinized election ever in American history," Biden said describing the litany of legal challenges and recounts in states across the nation. "In every case, neither cause nor evidence was found to undermine the national achievement of administering a historic election.

"The ‘big lie’ is just that, a big lie," Biden said, using a favored line of Donald Trump's that he once again repeated at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday.

Civil rights groups have pressed Bidden to work with Congress to pass the "For the People Act" and the "John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act" to counter what they believe are coordinated attacks against minority voters. 

As Trump has re-emerged onto the political scene and Republicans in 17 states introduced 28 new laws on voting regulation, the White House has upped its counterattack.

Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to take on voting rights in June, and last week she unveiled a $25 million initiative by the Democratic National Committee to focus on the 2022 midterm elections.

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The measure, known as the "I Will Vote Campaign," is an effort to educate voters about new voting laws, register voters, and encourage them to turn out in the same numbers seen in the 2020 general election.

"In America, if you lose you accept the results, you follow the Constitution, you try again. You don’t call facts fake and then try to bring down the ‘American experiment’ just because you’re unhappy," Biden said.

The president called the claims made by some in the GOP that the 2020 presidential election result was not valid, as well as the push for increased voting regulations, the greatest threat on U.S. democracy since the Civil War.

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"In 2020, democracy was put to a test," the president continued. "Because of the extraordinary courage of elected officials, many of them Republicans…democracy held.

"This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. This is literally about who we are as Americans, it’s that basic," he concluded.