Former President Barack Obama on Friday denounced voting laws being pushed by Republicans – which started Georgia and have been spreading to GOP-controlled states across the U.S. Obama claimed that these laws are “rigging the game.”
“That’s the kind of dangerous behavior that we’re going to have to push back on,” Obama said at an event with the Economic Club of Chicago.
Obama’s remarks come as several Republican-dominant state governments have moved to change existing voting laws with new restrictions that could make it harder for their constituents to exercise their voting rights.
Obama further argued that this kind of movement does not align with the democratic values that the U.S. has espoused historically and that corporations should be responsible to call these efforts out.
“I think the corporate community has a responsibility to at least call folks out on that. Because that transcends policy,” Obama said. “This really has to do with the basic rules by which we have all agreed to keep this diverse and multiracial democracy functioning.”
“Are we going to stick to those rules or are we going to start rigging the game in a way that breaks it? And that’s not going to be good for business, not to mention not good for our soul,” he added.
