Michelle Obama Wants To Register 1 Million Voters Ahead of Midterms

By Tadi Abedje Published: January 11, 2022

Michelle Obama Wants To Register 1 Million Voters Ahead of Midterms

In this image from video, former first lady Michelle Obama speaks during the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Aug. 17, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)

In Summary

Other than registering millions of people to vote, the goals include bringing in volunteers to register and turn out voters.

Former first lady Michelle Obama and her voting rights organization When We All Vote, along with numerous civic organizations, are planning to register more than one million new voters ahead of the 2022 midterms, according to Axios.

This decision comes at a time when the Senate still hasn’t budged on passing voting rights legislation. Another challenge is that Republican-led state legislators across the U.S. continue to implement voting restrictions.

“This type of voter suppression is not new. 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,” Obama said in a letter.

“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,” she said.

The former first lady has listed a number of goals her organization would attempt to accomplish. She is joined by 30 other groups, including the NAACP, More Than a Vote and Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight Action.

According to Axios, the goals include training and recruiting at least 100,000 volunteers to register and turnout voters, organizing Americans to get in touch with their senators and telling them to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and bringing in thousands of lawyers to protect voters in states where their voting rights are undermined.