Changes to Georgia’s voting laws were claimed to suppress turnout. MLB pulled the all-star game from Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s new “restrictive voting law”.
However, no suppressed turnout this year. Voter turnout is double and triple the last two primaries.
Early voting in Georgia on record-setting pace for May 24 election, defying past trend https://news.yahoo.com/early-voting-georgia-record-setting-1…
Early voting in Georgia ahead of the May 24 primaries is breaking records, defying the historical trend of lower turnouts in non-presidential election years…Early voting is running 239% ahead of the same point in the early voting period leading up to the 2018 primaries and 160% above the same point prior to the 2020 primaries.
Changes to Georgia’s voting laws were claimed to suppress turnout.
Not quite. The changes were intended to suppress turnout. It appears to have backfired.
Also, comparing current turnout rates to past ones without controlling for other, obvious influencing variables (e.g., who’s running), is the sort of “analysis” that earns a Fail.
Opinion only. The changes were designed to improve confidence in the system, regardless of who is running or what the outcome is.
Any lack of confidence in the electoral system in Georgia is the result of undeniable lies about that system.
The following is a fair-minded review of the new provisions and their plausible effects, some of which are probably trivial and some of which are probably not. All of them were entirely unnecessary:
(Note: Prof. Hakeem Jefferson, cited in the article, was a student of mine. Born and raised in South Carlina, he is a scholar of impeccable integrity.)
Not quite. The changes were intended to suppress turnout. It appears to have backfired.
You can only suppose this - you cannot possibly know it, since you don’t know the hearts of those who voted it into law. I find it curious that you present it as an assertion of fact. You might give some thought to the distinction between what you know, and what you believe.
When the review starts with the assertion that (paraphrased) “The people in favour of this are lying…” ‘fair minded’ is the last description that comes to mind.
Early voting is running 239% ahead of the same point in the early voting period leading up to the 2018 primaries and 160% above the same point prior to the 2020 primaries.
The surge in turnout has much less to do with the law itself (although it does allow for 17 days of early voting) than with the Republican gubernatorial primary playing out between Kemp and Trump (in the person of his proxy, Perdue). However, the law obviously isn’t the draconian roadblock to voting that its shrillest critics insisted it would be if the early voting already looks like this.
You might give some thought to the distinction between what you know, and what you believe.
What I know is that there are no more than a handful of isolated instances of individuals casting fraudulent ballots. The notion that the electoral system in Georgia was in need of enhanced “security” to prevent such nonexistent fraud arose out of a last-ditch attempt to undermine the integrity of that system.
“It’s now illegal in Georgia to give food and water to voters in line” The law applies within 150 feet of a polling place or within 25 feet of any voter at a polling place. Violators are guilty of a misdemeanor. How horrible.
Only perhaps. The idea is to prevent voters being influenced through the use of food and drink. A little vodka can be persuasive to some…
When the review starts with the assertion that (paraphrased) “The people in favour of this are lying…” ‘fair minded’ is the last description that comes to mind.
Rather than paraphrase, let’s quote how the article actually begins: “Georgia’s new election law SB 202, which many experts decried as an attack on the fundamental fairness of the state’s elections, was compared to Jim Crow by many leading Democrats. Now some observers are pushing back, arguing the bill falls well short of a democratic apocalyptic.”
I’d call that fair-minded.
Further down, it says: “The fundamental truth about SB 202 is this: Its very existence is predicated on a lie. The bill’s passage was motivated by unfounded claims of fraud in the Georgia presidential elections — lies that Donald Trump spread and continues to spread, with the help of both state and national Republicans.”
“It’s now illegal in Georgia to give food and water to voters in line”
How horrible.
I have personally handed out water to Detroiters standing in line for more than three hours in the hot sun waiting to vote. Many of them were elderly and not in good health. With the cooperation of election officials and other folks in line, we were able to get some of the worst cases up to the front so they could vote. We had to call EMS in a couple of cases.
I’d like to see a law that makes it illegal for a voter to have to stand in line in the hot sun or pouring rain for hours in order to cast a ballot in America.
It was already illegal to campaign around a polling place. This would include giving water with a candidate’s name on the bottle or handing a bottle along with a message for a candidate.
So, why the ban on handing out water?
Vodka? puleeeze. That is already a violation of law. You illustrate your low opinion of voters in general or is it just Democratic voters?
I’d like to see a law that makes it illegal for a voter to have to stand in line in the hot sun or pouring rain for hours in order to cast a ballot in America.
I agree. But I’m curious about why those voters in Detroit are waiting hours to cast their votes.
I’m not familiar with Michigan election laws, and practices vary from state to state. But generally, decisions about the number of precincts, the number of voting machines in each precinct, the staffing levels at the precincts, and other matters that would affect Election Day waiting times are left to county or municipal elections officials.
So, for example, in this NPR article about Georgians waiting in huge lines on election day, the article points out that the state was not being very diligent in enforcing state laws that prohibit having too many votes per polling place. But it also notes that the reason those polling places were overloaded was because the county officials had closed and consolidated so many polling places. The state didn’t stop them, but the initial decision was being made at the county level - often in counties that are overwhelmingly Democratic and in some cases majority black:
If they were within 150 feet of the polling station then there is something severely wrong with their voting pace.
boater, the law prohibits handing out water to voters regardless of whether they are within 150 feet of the polling place, because it also prohibits handing out water within 25 feet of any voter in line to vote. So you can set up stations to pass out water some distance away from the polling place, but voters will have to leave their place in line to go to them.