Lots of people and organizations are grandstanding and demagoguing about a piece of legislation in Georgia that is well within the midrange of voting laws to be found around the country, and merely specifies provisions that were considered quite normal less than a decade ago. Their displays of self-congratulation are based on lies and they know it.
Let's start with President Joe Biden, whose "Jim Crow on steroids" remark and lies about the law's voting-hours provisions garnered four Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact-checker Glenn Kessler:
First he quotes Biden:
“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick … deciding that you’re going to end voting at 5 o’clock when working people are just getting off work.” (March 25)
“Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” (March 26)
“You are going to close a polling place at 5 o’clock when working people just get off. This is all about keeping working folks and ordinary folks that I grew up with from being able to vote.”
Then Kessler responds to the president’s claims:
In reality, Election Day hours were not changed and the opportunities to cast a ballot in early voting were expanded. The law made a modest change, replacing a vague phrase “normal business hours” — presumed to be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — to a more specific 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. time period. (Some rural county election offices worked only part time during the week, not a full eight-hour day, so the shift to more specific times makes it clear they must be open every weekday for at least eight hours.) But that’s the minimum.
Under the new law, counties have the option to extend the voting hours so voters can start casting ballots as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 7 p.m. — the same as Election Day in Georgia. Moreover, an additional mandatory day of early voting on Saturday was added and two days of early voting on Sunday were codified as an option for counties.
The White House did not provide an explanation for Biden’s erroneous statement, which has turned up in a news conference, an official statement and an interview. Astonishingly, at an April 1 news briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the president’s comment, incorrectly arguing “it standardizes the ending of voting every day at 5, right?”
The truth is that the Georgia bill codifies drop boxes for ballots as a permanent feature of the state’s voting system (prior to 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic they had never been used there before), expands early voting, and institutes a voter ID requirement that is broadly supported by Americans of all races. Jim Crow it is not, much less a performance-enhancing drugged-up version of it.
Then there's his disgusting distortion of what the handing-out-food-and-water provision says:
Here’s what Biden had to say:
It’s an atrocity. The idea, you want any indication, it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency. They pass a law saying you can’t provide water for people standing in line, while they’re waiting to vote. You don’t need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting. You can’t provide water for people about to vote? Give me a break.
Let’s take a look at what S.B. 202 actually says:
No person shall solicit votes [or] distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to [a voter] … This Code section shall not be construed to prohibit a poll officer…from making available self-service water from an unattended receptacle to [a voter] waiting in line to vote.
The parts in bold are what S.B. 202 added to the statute. The prohibition applies inside polling places, within 150 feet of a polling place, or “within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.”
Now, first of all, notice what is not prohibited here. Voters can still bring bottled water or other food or beverages with them to stand on line to vote, as people often do when waiting at Disney World or to buy concert tickets or in other public places where people stand on long lines. Voters can still also, if they like, order food; the bill doesn’t stop the Domino’s Pizza man or the local hot dog cart or taco truck from doing business. And if you feel impelled to donate food and drink to voters, you can still do that, too; you just have to give it to the poll workers so they can put it out for general use. The president’s claim that “You can’t provide water for people about to vote” is just false. What you cannot do under the new Georgia law is deploy people in National Rifle Association t-shirts and MAGA hats to hand out free Koch-brothers-financed, Federalist Society–branded pizza to voters.
If you read the full Major League Baseball statement, written my commissioner Rob Manfred, also found in the above-linked piece, you'll see he doesn't actually specify any details of the law that the organization finds objectionable. Just a lot of dog waste about Hank Aaron and "fair access to voting."
Delta Airlines peddles falsehoods with a race-card angle in its chime-in on the matter:
Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, issued a foolish statement denouncing Georgia’s election reform legislation. Bastien’s statement parroted false left-wing narratives:
Last week, the Georgia legislature passed a sweeping voting reform act that could make it harder for many Georgians, particularly those in our Black and Brown communities, to exercise their right to vote.
This is false. What the law does is make it harder for non-existent people, people who are not qualified voters, and people who have already cast ballots to vote.
I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.
The right to vote is sacred. It is fundamental to our democracy and those rights not only need to be protected, but easily facilitated in a safe and secure manner.
After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong.
Again, this is sheer fabrication, and racist fabrication at that. The idea that “Black voters” are somehow unable to participate in an elementary process like voting is insulting to them.
You may remember Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia election official who gave the thunderous speech last December holding Donald Trump responsible for creating a climate in which threats and calls for violence could proliferate, and for costing the GOP the Senate;
My boss, Secretary Raffensperger, his address is out there. They have people doing caravans in front of their house. They’ve had people come on to their property. Tricia, his wife of 40 years, is getting sexualized threats through her cell phone. It has to stop. This is elections. This is the backbone of democracy. And all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much. Yes. Fight for every legal vote. Go through your due process. We encourage you. Use your first amendment. That’s fine. Death threats, physical threats, intimidation, it’s too much. It’s not right. They’ve lost the moral high ground to claim that it is.
I don’t have all the best words to do this because I’m angry. The straw that broke the camel’s back today is again, this 20 year old contractor for a voting system company, just trying to do his job. Just there. In fact, I talked to Dominion today and I said, “He’s one of the better ones they got.” His family is getting harassed now. There’s a noose out there with his name on it. That’s not right. I’ve got police protection outside my house. Fine. I took a higher profile job. I get it. Secretary ran for office. His wife knew that too. This kid took a job. He just took a job. And it’s just wrong. I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this. And every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike should have that same level of anger.
Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia. We’re investigating. There’s always a possibility. I get it, and you have the rights to go through the courts. What you don’t have the ability to do, and you need to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed. And it’s not right. It’s not right. And y’all, I don’t have anything scripted. Like I said, I’m going to do my best to keep it together. All of this is wrong.
So he's clearly no fan of the Very Stable Genius. But he also sees that Biden's remarks are every bit as toxic:
Sterling wasn’t pleased. “I think it’s morally reprehensible and disgusting that he’s perpetuating economic blackmail over a lie,” he told The Dispatch. “It’s a lie. This is no different than the lie of Trump saying there was voter fraud in this state. And the people who are going to be most hurt by [a boycott] are the workers in all of these places that are going to be impacted.”
Georgia was by no means purple, even though it wound up sending two Democrats to the Senate in the January runoff. That was largely due to the boneheaded GOP candidates' behavior and the VSG's antics such as the "find 11,000 votes" call to Brad Raffensperger. My powers of prognostication are decidedly those of an amateur, but I think we can expect 2022 midterm results that show strong backlash to this disgusting bit of strutting by the leftists who have designs on making America unrecognizable.
UPDATE: A white-hot Governor Brian Kemp lets loose on the MBA and big Georgia-based corporations.
UPDATE: Donald Trump needs to shut his stinking rotten mouth and stay the hell out of this situation.
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