Republicans In Georgia Pass Sweeping Bill That Will Make It Harder To Vote

The Georgia legislature passed a sweeping measure on Thursday that would dramatically limit access to voting following continual and unfounded claims of fraud after the state voted Democrat in the 2020 presidential race.

The bill would impose new identification requirements on those who vote by mail, imperiling the 200,000 voters who don’t have a driver’s license or state ID number. It would also limit the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots, criminalize voting groups from giving those standing in line to vote food and water and shorten the period for runoff races.

The measure did weaken some controversial provisions in earlier drafts, including a potential ban on Sunday voting, which were largely seen as transparent attempts to rein in “Souls to the Polls” programs, which have traditionally been used by Black communities to get congregations to vote after church. Critics of the bill, however, argue it will still unduly target communities of color that propelled President Joe Biden to the White House and saw the state elect two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

The bill, which passed with votes of 34-20 in the Senate and 100-75 in the House, is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Thursday, who has made voter purges a cornerstone of his career.

“Why do we rally, why do we protest voter suppression?” state Rep. Erica Thomas (D) said on the House floor Thursday, per The New York Times. “It is because our ancestors are looking down right now on this House floor, praying and believing that our fight, and that their fight, was not in vain.”

Black faith leaders also led a protest outside the Georgia State Capitol on Thursday, saying the bill amounted to a new era of voter suppression.

Biden targeted a spate of Republican-led efforts to limit voting rights as “un-American” on Thursday during his first formal news conference as president, calling them “despicable” attacks against democracy. More than a dozen states, including many battleground regions that swung Democrat in 2020, are weighing similar laws.

“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” the president said. “It’s sick.”

“This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” Biden added.

Republicans have touted the bill as an effort to restore trust in elections following the 2020 race, which former President Donald Trump and his GOP surrogates have claimed was rife with voter fraud. Those allegations are untrue, and even the former president’s own officials said the election was the most secure in history. That didn’t stop Trump from attacking Georgia’s election officials while calling on them to “find” votes for him that would overturn the will of the people.

“Our goal is to ensure that voters in Georgia have confidence in the elections process,” state Sen. Max Burns (R) said Thursday, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This is a solid step in the right direction to provide voter integrity in Georgia.”

In Georgia, hand and machine recounts confirmed that Biden won the state by about 12,000 ballots.