Sen. Merkley: Urgent Need For Voting Rights Bill | MSNBC

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) says the wave of GOP-backed voter suppression bills passed by state legislatures shows how urgent the need is to pass the Senate’s voting rights bill. He tells Lawrence O’Donnell despite a “supermajority” of Americans who want Congress to protect voting rights, Republican leadership has barred its members “from trying to ensure that every American can vote.”
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Drawing upon his experience as a former chief of staff on the Senate Finance Committee and as an Emmy-winning executive producer and writer of "The West Wing," Lawrence O'Donnell examines the compelling and impactful political stories of the day. O'Donnell convenes diverse panels of guests, including a variety of politicians and cultural voices, to offer unique viewpoints and perspective. In his signature style, O'Donnell highlights the latest news developments and offers his take on the political stories driving the national conversation.

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99 comments

  1. It’s time to let the people decide issues like this. Our representatives no longer represent the will of the people.

    1. @J F Sheep? A term used by blind mice Republicans. All you need to do is just look in the mirror to see a blind person 😂

    2. @Human Advance Do you realize you are living under the Organic act of 1871 and that D.C is a corporation and not part of the United States?Biden is the president of a failed corporation. Trump will be the 19th president of “The Republic of the United states of America” as soon as the military is done. You will see soon enough

    3. @Human Advance and at that time only 13% of the US’s population were eligible to vote: white, male, land owners….

    4. @randal gibbons your question is so idiotic, it’s hard to know where to begin and highly doubtful you will even comprehend it.

    1. Constitution says you don’t have to have an ID…..”without restriction, without condition”
      I have no problem with an ID… but changing the amendment requires 2/3 of both houses of congress and 2/3 of states. The Federal Election Commission delegates how federal elections are run and congress can empower them as they see fit.

    2. @Stephen Kershaw the without condition.. without restriction goes out the window when you have to register to vote. Registering is both a condition and a restriction… obtaining an ID is no different.

    3. @Stephen Kershaw You’re wrong Stephen… sorry, you can’t have it one way regarding restrictions and then say registration isn’t a restriction. Other restrictions include hours of operation on election day, requiring signatures, locations of voting places, etc… IDs are no different, however the left don’t want them because it will hurt their chances at winning elections.

    1. @srgreeniii sure, I’m guessing you watched all the 26 hours of hearings in each state after the election? No fraud, you really bought that MSM lie didn’t you? 145 million people voted, 75 million voted for Trump, that only leaves 70 for Biden 🤷‍♂️🤔

    2. @srgreeniii wow if you know so much why are you still on YouTube? Why aren’t you working for the government? Oh wait….

    3. @srgreeniii “Why do you all not see what is so obvious?” we are all wondering why the Left can’t either. If we don’t fix the problem I have a U-Haul truck I’ll be using to vote in 2024.

    4. @srgreeniii I don’t know of a single web service that doesn’t purge user credentials on some kind of timescale. That’s done for security. The same principles of security can be applied to people – reissuing i.d. cards or smart-cards that change their access code over time are becoming more commonplace as we begin to understand the security benefits of dynamic pins/passwords. Applying that to the real world, registering more often means that inactive “accounts” aren’t being abused. If voter drop boxes aren’t under 24 hour surveillance I don’t trust them. To imply there’s no voter fraud is an outright lie, ANY fraudulent vote is directly taking a vote away from a citizen.

    1. In the case of the United States, the American people have always been ignorant & expect government to do everything. Sure the politicians give the people the corruption they are asking for. But the people are the real problem.

    2. ummm… there are politicians at the end, middle and beginning of every civilization… but the US has never been “a great civilization”…

    3. @Human Advance that’s what Thomas Jefferson anticipated and wanted only approved people to have the PRIVILEGE, not right, to vote.

    1. Expert statisticians have reviews the voter data from all modern American presidential elections and found something shocking. Every American Presidential election since 2002*2004 has been “ENHANCED” by V-Machines and computer software. Think Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan.

    1. one big reason: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES which specifically stipulates voting is a right not to be hindered by restriction or conditions.
      What has been proven time and time again… THERE IS ZERO REASON TO HAVE AN ID TO VOTE.

    2. @Stephen Kershaw So anyone in the whole world can vote then because they don’t need to identify as American citizens? Nice..

    1. You can’t get a job without an ID.
      Why not issue one to those without them so they can get a JOB. Then since everyone has one why not just ask them to show it real quick when they vote.

    1. @David M yeah okay, someone who has no clue is telling someone far superior they dont know, errrright 🙄

    2. @Stephen Kershaw if you are far superior to me, then how come you don’t know Democrats want to make it so you don’t require ID to vote? I saw you post idiotic replies on other comments here too, seems no one agrees with you.

    1. @Nunnie even if there were no discrepancies or fraudulent votes found, why is it a bad thing to try to further protect against them in the next elections?

    2. @metalshrivv 1. The barriers are unnecessary and it makes voting more Niche and less representative of the population as a whole.
      2. lowers confidence in the election based on conspiracy theories that won’t be calmed by any restriction, leading to more restrictions

    3. @metalshrivv there hasn’t been a reason to believe people are lying about who there are when going to vote.

    1. what “barriers”?
      what “cheating”?
      wtf are you talking about? Oh wait, you have no clue

    2. @Stephen Kershaw Here’s a simple explanation:
      Requiring citizens to request a ballot helps ensure a ballot is sent to the correct address – mine was sent to my old address this year and could have easily been filled out. Never would’ve been caught without a signature audit.
      Requiring Identification to request a mail-in ballot or vote in-person places a miniscule responsibility on the citizen to get (usually and should be free) i.d. and providing hard proof someone is who they say they are. Small responsibility, big security. No I.d. can be used twice, so no double-votes and no dead voters.

      All of that would help prevent Republicans from cheating in elections, I think it sounds pretty good.

    3. @Derrek Larson Dead voters and double votes are flagged and people doing this are prosecuted. The Republicans are cheating in a different way, they are cheating by making it harder for your vote to count. Why make laws about food and water in line, why limit the amount of boxes? Why do you have to register year over year. You wrongly assume this happens in mass without proof at all.

  2. Their biggest issue is that you’ll now have to request your mail in ballot and it’ll require id before receiving it. Mass universal mail in ballots was their way of rigging the election and hey know it

    1. @Swish Cheetah There’s never been a “National” vote by mail meaning mailing millions of extra ballots and not verifying the legality of the voters. It was almost if Democrats were flooding the nation with extra and unverified ballots in order to enable a fraud election to take place. I wonder how there was more ballots cast in areas than there was registered voters.

    2. ​@David Patton That’s not what you said. You said “There’s never been voting by mail until this fraud of an election.” And I proved you wrong with counterevidence. Do you wish to rescind your original statement and replace it with something else?

    3. @Swish Cheetah let’s be real here. Your party wants to cheat. Just look at the HR-1 bill, they’re pushing for automatic voter registration as long as you apply for any public services, get a drivers license (like many sanctuary cities allow for illegals), go to college (like many illegals do), and grant legal amnesty if they get caught voting (meaning they’re encouraging illegal voters and even know they’d be facilitating it). They also what to grant convicted felons voting rights, and lower the voting age to 16 by allowing them to registration. So they’re pretty much pushing to legalize all the election fraud claims that they said didn’t exist. I swear the left is so uninformed it’s almost sickening

    4. @David Patton well, all the courts with Trump appointed judges, all the Republican state officials, the Trump DOJ and the mostly Republican Supreme Court all said there was no fraud. I have no reason to believe they wouldn’t be honest, particularly since they have every motivation to scream fraud if there was any.
      There have been individuals caught trying to commit fraud, but since all but one (who’s vote was never counted) voted multiple times for Trump, I think we can discount those.
      The only question was whether a state has the right to change the rules for a national emergency like the pandemic. That’s not fraud. That’s states rights, which is in the constitution as being something that can’t be denied.
      I’m not sure exactly what “fraud” people are talking about, but even Trump’s attorneys told judges they weren’t accusing anyone of fraud.

  3. If they seriously no longer want IDs for voting, then IDs should no longer be needed for anything else. If they still support 16 year old voting, 16 year old should be mature enough to be recognized and treated as adults, leave home and have to work.

    1. @ruby scott how is it different…. how do we know the person is who they say they are if we cant check….. so driving is more important then voteing for president? Do u seriously not hear how dumb u sound lol and he never said 16 year olds are the problem with mail in voteing…. do u know what a strawman is? Do u know what a good faith argument is?

    2. @ruby scott Having ID is necessary for exercising the second amendment by purchasing a gun, an action explicitly allowed by the constitution. Yet for a multitude of reasons our society has decided that it is in the best interest of everyone to force identification to purchase a rifle. Why not the same for voting, an action that isn’t even constitutionally protected?

    3. who supports 16 year olds voting?
      and why wouldnt you need an id for anything else?
      most stupid argument….
      we’re talking about a constitutional right that specifies “without restriction, without condition”
      states have no right nor say in federal elections nor mandating any restrictions or conditions….

    4. @Stephen Kershaw I’m not sure what side your trying to argue for lol but the last part about a constitutional rights things… the us constitution only applys to legal american citizens… now if we cant check that your a citizen then the whole without restrictions dont apply

    5. @Ryan Rickaby WRONG!
      The US Constitution is a “operation procedure” for the United States Government -its the rules and regulations of how government functions and is expected to follow…. not citizens…. the Constitution applies to any and all people on US soil… not just citizens…. Amendments specify which are extended to citizenry specifically.

  4. I did volunteer work at a food pantry for the poor.
    To get their monthly allotment of food, the qualified people had to come in and show their ID to prove who they are. Never had a problem with them showing their ID, and this was in a major city.
    The idea that the need to show ID to vote prevents poor Black and Hispanic people from voting is absurd.

    1. standing online at a food bank is not a CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHT (which specifies without condition or restriction)
      stop with the silly, stupid false equivalencies.

    2. @Rudy Ferrell you’re 100% wrong! 1% of Americans die of malnutrition each year, which ranks the US at 102 which puts it right around the 50% ranking… meaning there are a ton of 3rd world countries as well as the other G35 developed country that rank much better….
      why don’t you sit your ignorant butt down and shut your mouth if you have no clue what you’re talking about.

    3. @sweetsarahstr84 you DRIVE 45 minutes to the DMV to get a drivers license? This sounds like chicken and egg stuff….

    4. @grannypantsificationI get what your saying but at 16 you can get an ID there has got to be a way for people to get to the DMV its BS to say that Republicans make sure there are no DMVs in heavily dense black populated areas. Most of those places are actually democrate ran cities or communities to begin with.

    1. @Stephen Kershaw firstly, i asked you first for your evidence. secondly, look up the term ballot harvesting moron.

    2. @justastripe has it been done yes, but to the extent demorats did it in 2020. dont worry arizona and michigan will have something to say on the matter shortly

    3. @daniel banks seems like you’re very desperate and extremely triggered, which explains your obsession and arguing out of spite when you have clearly been bested and humiliated publicly. I find it ironic that someone so ignorant unintelligent think they’re in a position to evaluate other people’s intelligence, especially when they’re far superior to you. You’re just a clown on YouTube blabbing away and unaware of your own shortcomings. You’re like a self-fulfilling prophecy of the Dunning Kruger effect

  5. Yes a Voters Bills that requires a national ID registration before the vote can be counted.

    1. @ruby scott American CITIZENS. Not illegal immigrants, not dead ancestors, and not half a dozen ballots per voter. Pretty simple right? A national voter ID addresses these problems.

    2. @ruby scott i mean technically the constitution put forth the condition that only land owners could vote but that was later changed so…

    3. @Fred Bear 1.) the only “national ID” is a passport…. a specified ID is unconstitutional.
      and being that none of the other bizarre scenarios you mentioned don’t even exist, Id say you have no clue what you’re talking about

    4. @Eric Burton correction: ONLY WHITE MALE LAND OWNERS…which was about 12% of the population in 1787

    5. @Stephen Kershaw Wrong. the real ID act addresses these issues by requiring a birth certificate and proof of adress. My DL is already compliant. The real ID act is already law but guess which states are dragging their heels implementing it. Yea, the sanctuary states, wonder why. Hopefully it will be a moot point sonn.

    1. huh?
      what’s the big hurry to make voting restrictions? and why at all when there are no existing reasons?

  6. Voting reform needs to happen all over the country! If there’s nothing to hide, let’s be completely transparent!

  7. Legacy media is done. No one respects them anymore. YouTube can’t delete the down votes fast enough.

  8. I agree 100%. You have a right to vote when you show a government issued ID in person at the voting site 🙂

    1. @OlderG0ds WRONG! There is no “automatic voter registration”… it’s only something THE INDIVIDUAL can authorize with legitimate appropriate paperwork.
      Do you work hard at stupidity?

    2. @Stephen Kershaw let me guess, you do approve of some sort of vaccine paperwork though don’t you? You need a valid ID to do almost anything of importance in this country, yet voting to decide who gets to lead your community, state, country doesn’t require one. Seems rather obvious why certain segments of the population would want it to be that way now doesn’t it.

    3. @Justice Matters no which is absurd and exactly my point. I did show my ID when I went to vote though which should be the standard in civilization beyond the Stone Age.

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