U.S. Voting Rights Activist Stacy Abrams Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

(Reuters) – U.S. voting rights activist and Democratic Party politician Stacey Abrams has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her work to promote nonviolent change via the ballot box, a Norwegian lawmaker said on Monday.

Abrams, whose work was credited with boosting voter turnout last year, helping Joe Biden win the U.S. presidency, joins a long list of nominees, including both former President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, former White House adviser Jared Kushner.

“Abrams’ work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights,” said Lars Haltbrekken, a Socialist Party member of Norway’s parliament.

King, a Baptist minister who became a leader of the 1960s civil rights movement, won the Nobel prize in 1964 and remains among its most famous laureates.

“Abrams’ efforts to complete King’s work are crucial if the United States of America shall succeed in its effort to create fraternity between all its peoples and a peaceful and just society,” Haltbrekken said.

Thousands of people, from members of parliaments worldwide to former winners, are eligible to propose candidates, and a nomination does not imply endorsement from the Nobel committee in Oslo.

Other candidates this year include Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the World Health Organization and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

The U.S. Black Lives Matter movement, as well as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” about the Vietnam War, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and WikiLeaks, have also been nominated, as have pro-democracy and civil rights campaigners from Belarus to Poland and Hungary.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides who wins the award, does not comment on nominations, but nominators can choose to reveal their picks.

Prominent former U.S. winners include Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, and former vice president, Al Gore.

The 2021 laureate will be announced in October.