As activists celebrate the passage of the Voting Rights Act of Virginia, candidate for Governor, Delegate Kirk Cox, announced that he not only supports Georgia’s recently passed and widely panned voter suppression law, but he wants Virginia to take it even further. On the John Fredericks Radio Show yesterday, Cox said that Virginia could “go further than Georgia just did” to prevent voters from making their voices heard in our elections.  

“For democracy to work for all of us, it must include all of us. But conservatives like Kirk Cox have learned that when everyone votes in our elections, they can’t hold on to power. So they are trying everything they can to create barriers to make voting harder so that some people in our community, and Black and Brown voters in particular, can’t make their voices heard in our elections,” Ashleigh Crocker, Communications Director at Progress Virginia, said. “Democrats in Virginia have proven over and over again that they are committed to expanding voting rights by passing bills to allow drop boxes, expand absentee voting, and prevent discrimination against voters so that everyone can freely and safely cast their ballot. We won’t let people like Kirk Cox silence our voices.”

Background: 

• The Voting Rights Act of Virginia:
  • Requires jurisdictions give public notice and have comment periods prior to any local changes to voting ordinances 
    • This would prevent localities from making changes that have historically disenfranchised Black voters 
  • Expands the requirements for jurisdictions to provide voting materials in languages other than English 
  • Strengthens protections against voter threats and intimidation so every voter can feel safe while making their voice heard in our elections
• Businesses in Georgia are already facing calls for a boycott in response to the voter suppression law. 
  • Two massive Georgia companies, Delta and Coke, have come out against the bill.