WASHINGTON — The day after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected another attempt by President Donald Trump to limit mail-in balloting, dozens of protesters gathered outside the U.S. Capitol as Rep. Analilia Mejia urged them to make sure they cast ballots this fall.
“The way in which we engage in this society, the way in which we uphold this representative democracy, the way in which we protect what really makes this nation great, is by ensuring that every eligible voter has the ability to vote,” Mejia (D-Glen Ridge) told the crowd.
“We need to make sure that every voice and vote count,” she said.
She blasted the Trump administration for trying to make it harder for people to vote rather than change unpopular policies.
“They prefer to rig the rules instead of changing a policy platform that is failing the American people,’’ she said.
Trump has pressured Congress into passing the SAVE America Act, which would impose new restrictions on registering and voting that studies said could disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizens.
The bill has passed the House several times only to repeatedly fail in the Senate.
Trump on Tuesday blasted the high court’s decision that prevented him from curbing the widespread use of absentee ballots. The president has claimed without evidence that mail-in voting is rife with fraud.
“This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years,” he said on social media.
Trump received the votes of 46% of Latinos and 13% of Blacks two years ago, including 54% of Hispanic men, according to exit polls reported by CNN.
But Mejia said in an interview after her speech that Trump did so well because so many Americans didn’t vote.
“What in fact happened was a set of voters who felt so dejected, so unlistened to, so ignored that they stayed home,” Mejia said.
So the efforts to mobilize voters also need to include efforts to reach out to constituents.
“That is why I believe that the way in which we move forward is. in fact, being the kind of representative that engages their community. that asks questions. that holds town halls. that is responsive to the people that they seek to represent,” she said. “Yes, I think that the way in which you get people to participate in this system is to give them proof that their voice will count.”
Earlier in the day, Mejia joined other co-chairs of the House Democrats’ Defend the 14th Amendment Task Force in introducing a resolution reaffirming the right to vote.
“Generations of Americans fought, marched, organized, and sacrificed to secure the right to participate fully in our democracy,” said the Democratic lawmakers, who also included Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Emily Randall of Washington state and Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia. “We will not allow the rights they secured to be dismantled, and we will defend the right of every eligible voter to cast their ballot freely, safely, and without fear