Voting-Rights Activists, Including Actress Alyssa Milano, Arrested Outside White House

Twenty-four people were arrested outside the White House on Tuesday, October 19, as civil-rights organizations led a rally calling on the Biden Administration to “protect the freedom to vote” and for the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act. The demonstration was led by People for the American Way (PFAW), League of Women Voters (LWV), Declaration for American Democracy, and Democracy Initiative, and took place a day before the Senate was scheduled to vote on the act. Democrats promoting the bill say it’s necessary to counteract hundreds of new voting restrictions enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, but with no Republicans on board, the legislation was expected to be defeated. In a statement to Storyful, police with the National Park Service said, “a group affiliated with a permitted demonstration obstructed pedestrian traffic on the North White House sidewalk.” Police said 24 people who refused to comply with dispersal orders were issued citations for obstructing traffic before being released. Among the 24 arrested were actor and PFAW board member Alyssa Milano, President of PFAW Ben Jealous, CEO of the League of Women Voters Virginia Kase Solomon, Director of Declaration for American Democracy Jana Morgan, former US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and PFAW board member Rabbi David Saperstein, and Georgia State Rep Bee Nguyen, according to a list of arrestees published by the LWV. Credit: Markus Batchelor/PFAW via Storyful

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