GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. human rights chief on Monday called on the United States to protect the right to vote and ensure that this year’s presidential election is “non-discriminatory”.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee last year voiced concern at an “practices at the state level that limit the exercise of the right to vote”, including partisan gerrymandering, restrictions on voting by mail and burdensome voter ID requirements.
Former President Donald Trump has based his current campaign for re-election on his false claims that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was rigged.
“In this electoral year, it is particularly important for authorities at all levels to implement recent recommendations by the U.N. Human Rights Committee to ensure that suffrage is non-discriminatory, equal and universal,” Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“In a context of intense political polarisation, it is important to emphasise equal rights, and the equal value of every citizen’s vote,” Turk said.
Trump is the frontrunner to be the Republican presidential nominee in the Nov. 5. election. Biden faces little opposition in the Democratic Party in his campaign for a second four-year term.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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