Largest Federal Employee Union Says Voting Rights Under Attack

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., July 14, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Federation of Government Employees believes in the constitutional right of every American citizen to vote and will fight any effort to take away that right.

There is a growing movement to roll back voting rights protections that civil rights advocates fought and died to put in place during the past 50 years, AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said during a voting rights march and rally July 13 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"The reason the haters hate voting rights is that people of color, the poor, the elderly, the young – when they exercise the right to vote, they elect representatives who do good things with government resources," Cox said. "We vote people in who make our country a better place for racial minorities, women, and the working class. And that's why they want to take the vote away."

Thousands turned out Monday to protest North Carolina's voting law that eliminates same-day voter registration, limits what identification can be used to vote, curtails early voting, prohibits out-of-county precinct voting, and eliminates preregistration of those nearing voting age.

These restrictions attack the democratic process by preventing more people from voting – especially those at lower rungs of the economic ladder, Cox said. As a result, lawmakers are elected who oppose basic quality of life improvements that most Americans support: raising the minimum wage, funding clean air and water research, providing public schools with additional resources, and creating good-paying jobs.

"We cannot lose voting rights. This is the foundation of everything we stand for, and what so many courageous souls sacrificed everything for," Cox said.

For more information on what AFGE is doing to protect voting rights, visit www.afge.org/VoterProtection.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 670,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

For the latest AFGE news and information, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

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SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

Related Links

http://www.afge.org

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