Georgia’s New Voting Law: Democratic Backsliding in Action
Photo by Jimmy Emerson, DVM is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
On Thursday, March 25, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) sat down to sign a 98-page bill that had just passed the Georgia State House by a party-line vote of 100-75. After speaking for several minutes, the live feed abruptly ended as police led State Representative Park Cannon (D) away from Kemp’s office in handcuffs after he protested the bill by knocking loudly on the door to interrupt the signing. Senate Bill 202, the legislation at the heart of this controversy, is a massive overhaul of the state’s electoral system and was championed by Kemp as “another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair.” Democratic lawmakers, however, have criticized the legislation as racist, discriminatory, and an overt power grab.
Senate Bill 202, referred to by Republican lawmakers as the “Election Integrity Act of 2021,” is a way for Republicans to maintain a stranglehold on a state that they are rapidly losing a grip on, especially with what will undoubtedly be a hotly contested 2022 gubernatorial election that is looming on the horizon. The law is archaic and, despite some helpful components to bring voting accessibility to rural areas, targets the growing Democratic base in the state that recently helped push Joe Biden to 270 electoral votes and cement a Democratic majority in the Senate. The ways in which this law hurts the democratic process are diverse, but at the end of the day, it is important to consider whether or not this law would have come to fruition if President Biden had not won Georgia last November. The COVID-19 pandemic may have led to changes in the early and absentee voting laws, but Republican lawmakers would not have tried to enact such sweeping changes if Donald Trump had won the state.
The new voting law unfairly targets areas of Georgia with high population density, usually communities that vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates, by limiting the number of ballot drop boxes allowed and restricting the hours in which early voting is allowed to take place. In the 2020 primaries and elections, absentee voting became even more necessary to expand voting access. Under the new law, Georgia absentee ballots now require voters to write their identification number from their Georgia driver’s license or state I.D., and if this is not possible, a photocopied form of identification is required. Furthermore, election officials are now prohibited from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters, something that has become a popular method of getting voters their ballot without jeopardizing their health or work. It is hard to comprehend reasons to limit people’s ability to cast their ballots outside of fear that the majority of people taking advantage of these options are on the opposite side of the partisan or ideological spectrum. Republicans have argued that the new restrictions will increase voter trust in Georgia’s elections and prevent fraud, but this comes after Georgia’s Secretary of State was unable to find evidence of widespread fraud after multiple recounts and audits.
One of the law’s most discussed provisions prohibits anyone who is not a poll worker from providing food or water for voters waiting in line. In the most populated counties of the state, voters can easily wait over two hours in line. There is no reasonable argument to be made in defense of this particular provision, as providing water to waiting voters does not magically convince them to vote for a different candidate or substantially change the outcome of an election. The only explanation for the inclusion of this provision is that Georgia Republicans are seeking to deter people from being willing to wait in long lines at the already limited voting spaces in densely-populated communities. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Georgia voters waited in line 23 times longer than voters in Vermont. Across the country, African American voters waited in line for an average of 11.5 minutes and Hispanic voters waited for an average of 11.7 minutes. White voters only waited for an average of 8.8 minutes. Limiting the ability of volunteers to provide voters with water and food, especially in a state with consistently high temperatures, could be linked to inhibiting the growing voter turnout in densely populated, Democratic-leaning communities.
We cannot allow state governments to try and separate restrictions on voting rights from race and socioeconomic class. Republicans in Georgia and other states continue to argue that these new laws do not disproportionately disenfranchise marginalized groups. But we cannot allow the general public to believe that these laws are anything other than thinly veiled attempts to keep people living in marginalized communities from voting for their opponents.
After an election cycle as hotly-contested as 2020’s, it is clear that some state governments are willing to make full use of their power for a last ditch effort to inhibit opposition movements in their states. The passage of a state election reform law in response to changes made during the pandemic and after an election cycle with record turnout is not shocking, but this specific law is alarming because of how bold and targeted it is. The communities most affected by the reforms are densely populated, racially and ethnically diverse, and overwhelmingly Democratic. With other states, such as Ohio, set to release their own Republican-led election reform plans soon, the importance of how Georgia’s law is legally upheld and eventually put to the test cannot be overstated. Voter suppression is a symptom of democratic backsliding, and it is a problem that cannot be set aside just because the candidates with the most votes did manage to win this time, despite it.