US

‘Jim Crow in the 21st century’: Biden denounces Georgia’s new voting law

New law signed by Republican governor represents ‘blatant attack on constitution’

Protesters against new voting restrictions passed by the Georgia state legislature at the state Capitol building in Atlanta. Photograph: Nicole Craine/New York Times

Sat Mar 27 2021 - 09:06

United States president Joe Biden has lambasted a new law in Georgia that imposes sweeping new voting restrictions, calling it "un-American" and "Jim Crow in the 21st century".

The 98-page measure significantly curtails access to the ballot in the state. It imposes new ID requirements for mail-in voting, limits the availability of ballot drop boxes, gives voters less time to request and return a mail-in ballot, and bars providing food or water to people standing in line to vote.

Mr Biden said in a statement: “Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the constitution and good conscience.”

Activists in Georgia vowed on Friday to keep up an aggressive campaign to pressure Republicans over their support for the measure, saying they were undeterred by its final passage through the legislature.

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Two voting rights groups, the New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law hours after governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed it on Thursday evening. They say the law violates both the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the US constitution, noting that provisions in it "serve no legitimate purpose other than to make absentee, early and election-day voting more difficult – especially for minority voters".

Several more lawsuits are expected in the coming days.

The law also gives the state legislature, currently controlled by Republicans, the authority to appoint a majority of the state election board while also creating a pathway for the board to take over local boards of elections. Those boards make critical decisions on a range of issues, such as poll closures and challenges to voter qualifications.

‘Violation’

“We are filing this lawsuit for one simple reason: SB 202 should be classified as a violation of voting rights. It is a violation of our dignity and our power,” Nsé Ufot, chief executive of the New Georgia Project, said in a statement. “Georgia’s black, brown, young and new voters are here to stay. We will organise, knock on doors and show up to the polls 10 times over. And we will fight for solutions and progress for all Georgia voters.”

Mr Kemp dismissed criticism of the bill in a statement on Friday. “There is nothing ‘Jim Crow’ about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot – every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in-person,” he said. “President Biden, the left and the national media are determined to destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box. As secretary of state, I consistently led the fight to protect Georgia elections against power-hungry, partisan activists.”

Former president Donald Trump, who lost Georgia by about 12,000 votes in 2020, celebrated the changes on Friday. In a nod to the political benefit to Republicans, Mr Trump said: "Too bad they could not have happened sooner."

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, which recently launched a new effort to co-ordinate new restrictive voting laws, offered a full-throated defence of the measure on Friday. She pointed to a provision on the Bill that expands early voting hours on the weekends to argue that the measure overall made it easier to vote.

“Democrats can lie and spin about the Bill all they want, but the real question should be: why are Democrats so terrified of a transparent and secure election process? We look forward to defending this law in court,” she said.

Arrest

Park Cannon, a Democratic representative in the Georgia house of representatives, was arrested on Thursday evening as she knocked on the door to Mr Kemp's office while he was signing the Bill. Activist and senator Raphael Warnock rallied outside the Fulton county jail when she was released late on Thursday.

“Today is a very sad day for the state of Georgia,” Mr Warnock said. “What we have witnessed today is a desperate attempt to lock out and squeeze the people out of their own democracy.”

One provision in the law moves up the application deadline for an absentee ballot to 11 days until election day (voters previously had until the Friday before election day to request). In 2020, there were 17,602 absentee ballots cast that resulted from applications submitted 11 days before election day, according to an analysis by Fair Fight, a voting rights group. Black voters comprised about 37 per cent of the ballots returned during that period, compared with 30 per cent of all absentee ballots submitted.

The Bill also shortens the run-off election period from nine weeks to just four, with no guarantee of weekend early voting, which black voters disproportionately use. – Guardian

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