Barack Obama Quotes

Elections shall be open, free and equal, and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent an un-trammeled exercise of the right of suffrage.

If you protect a person's right to vote, then he'll protect himself better than you can.

Too many people struggled, suffered, and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

I think what it was about was the people's right to vote and have those votes counted. And if you think back through our history, an awful lot of what we've fought over, struggled for, is the right of people to vote. That's what the civil-rights movement was, at its bottom, about. At the fundamental level, democracy means a government in which the people vote.

When public access to voting is impaired or when public confidence in voting is diluted, democracy suffers and our freedom is less secure.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

What we say is that democracy means that you have the right to vote without intimidation and undue burdens. But if you stand in line for six hours, technically, today there is no document, no standard, no law that says that that's wrong.

I think if people value democracy, they had damn well better get out and exercise their right to vote while their vote still means something.

The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government

Secure to all people a free exercise of the right of suffrage and every other civil right.

The Ballot or the Bullet

A weapon that comes down as still As snowflakes fall upon the sod ;, But executes a freeman’s will, As lightning does the will of God; And from its force, nor doors nor locks Can shield you;—’tis the ballot box.

We do not pretend to show that universal suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a good.

If we don't allow people to vote in America, what is our democracy? It's a sham.

Selma helped make it possible for hundreds and thousands of people in the South to become registered voters and encouraged people all across America to become participants in a democratic process.

Voting in our country has never been easy, and unfortunately, it has never been guaranteed for everyone. But through the work of brave civil rights leaders, some of whom died for the cause, by the early 2000s we were at a point where most, but still not all, people who wanted to vote could do so.

People need to realize that people have died for your vote.

We live in a nation that spent centuries denying the right to vote to the poor, to women, and to people of color.

If you value the democratic process, you have to value the protection of political speech.

You gotta fight for your right to vote!

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again today: the vote is precious; it's almost sacred.

All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in America?

Citizenship means standing up for everyone's right to vote.***

Today, unfortunately, the right to vote seems to have become a partisan issue. Democrats seek to guarantee and expand voting rights. Republicans try to undermine and suppress voting rights.