Louisiana Voice

 “Things are happening on our watch that are clear signs of authoritarianism, and we have to push back.”

—Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“We have relied on democratic norms and expectations for years that now turn out to be very weak in the face of somebody with an authoritarian bent. The electorate is becoming more diverse, and one group is trying to hold on to power by making it harder for Black, Latino and other minorities to vote.”

—Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice.

“A set of actors in the Trump administration and the Republican party have made it very clear that their intention is to hold on to political power at the expense of democratic institutions. It sounds outlandish to say that in an American election one party would refuse to admit the legitimacy of the result, but that’s very much where we are and all the rhetoric right now is about creating the atmospherics that would enable that kind of power grab on 4 November. Distrust is being stoked and weaponized, and a huge chunk of the country has been primed to disbelieve the legitimacy of the result – whatever that result is.”

—Sabeel Rahman, president of the thinktank Demos.

“We have not seen this level of intentional overt exclusion since the 50s and 60s.”

—Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, on voter suppression efforts by the Trump administration.