Former First Lady Michelle Obama announces push to register one million new voters

In a statement on Sunday, former first lady Michelle Obama announced a push to get 1 million people registered to vote prior to the 2022 midterm elections this November.

She said her foundation, When We All Vote, as well as 30 other organizations, would recruit and train more than 100,000 volunteers to register new voters. 

Other groups involved in the effort include The League of Women Voters, the National Bar Association, the NAACP, Rock the Vote, Common Cause, and the Voto Latino Foundation.

The groups are also aiming to gather 100,000 people to contact senators about passing legislation for voting rights, in addition to recruiting “thousands” of lawyers to protect voting rights “in the states where the freedom to vote is threatened.” 

Obama mentioned GOP-led states, like Georgia, Texas, and Florida, that have all passed restrictive election bills, in moves that she considers to be voter suppression.

“This type of voter suppression is not new,” she said. “Generations of Americans have persevered through poll taxes, literacy tests, and laws designed to strip away their power – and they’ve done it by organizing, by protesting, and most importantly, by overcoming the barriers in front of them in order to vote. And now, we’ve got to do the same.”

She added in her statement, “We’ve got to vote like the future of our democracy depends on it, and we must give Congress no choice but to act decisively to protect the right to vote and make the ballot box more accessible for everyone.”

President Joe Biden said last month that he would support making an exception to the Senate filibuster rules if it meant voting rights legislation would be passed.