Biden slams Republicans' 'unrelenting assault' on voting rights

US President Joe Biden vowed once again on Friday to face down Republicans' "unrelenting" attacks on minority voting rights, speaking in front of students at a university in South Carolina historically linked to the African-American community.

"I've never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote," the Democratic leader told a graduation ceremony at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.

Biden's presence at the ceremony carried a powerful symbolic and political significance for the 79-year-old president.

He was invited by Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Congressman and one of the most influential Black politicians in the United States, whose support for Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election proved decisive.

And the university where Biden gave his speech is one of a group of institutions known as "Historically Black Colleges and Universities" which opened after the Civil War to accommodate Black students, who were banned from campuses in state practicing segregation.'

Biden was referring to electoral reforms undertaken in several conservative states which civil rights groups say have made it more difficult for minorities to vote.

He also warned that "this new sinister combination of voter suppression ... and election subversion is un-American"

Former president Donald Trump, who remains highly influential within the Republican camp, continues to insist that he was real winner of the 2020 election.

Some observers have accused him of putting in place at the local level mechanisms that will allow him to influence ballot tallies in the next presidential election.

"This battle is not over," Biden warned. "We continue to confront the oldest and darkest forces in this nation, hate and racism."

He also touched on another campaign promise to the African-American community, that of police reform after the deaths of numerous Black citizens at the hands of the police, most notably the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. There too, the president has been hampered by his razor-thin majority in Congress.

"I share the frustration," Biden said, adding that "the fight's not over."