Is there any living, breathing American who has not heard that Republicans in the House and Senate of Georgia’s Assembly passed the most restrictive voting rights bill in U.S. history? Have they not heard that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp quickly signed it into law?
Everyone has heard about it. On top of just hearing, Mainstream Media and President Joe Biden have filled newspapers, radio and television news shows, and online news sites with false information about the law! In fact, NONE of the egregious claims made by Democrats at every level of state and federal government claiming that Georgia’s African-American populace will be “disenfranchised” are true.
That bill-now-law has sparked lawsuits, boycotts, and mass outrage among Democrats, who describe the law as a revival of Jim Crow-era racism. But much of the heated rhetoric surrounding the bill, which Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law on Thursday, misrepresents what the reforms will accomplish.
The debate over whether Georgia’s law constitutes “despicable voter suppression,” as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, has claimed, or necessary updates to the state code is significant. Democrats in Washington have used the specter of the law to push a sweeping federal bill aimed at overhauling all elections. They have even threatened to weaken or end the filibuster in order to pass the bill, known as H.R. 1, to fight what they have characterized as racism in the way states like Georgia want to conduct their elections.
Here are some of the most controversial claims about the law — and what issues state Republicans were aiming to address.
LIMITATIONS ON VOTING HOURS
President Joe Biden claimed during his first press conference last week, and again in a statement the following day, that the law would force polling locations to close at 5 p.m. “so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.”
The law does not, however, cap voting hours at 5 p.m. It sets 5 p.m. as the earliest a polling place can close. In fact, the law gives polling places the discretion to remain open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during early voting, which could extend the amount of time people in some counties have to vote.
Rather than restrict the amount of time people have to get to the polls, the law expands it during the early voting period. Every county is now required to offer Saturday voting and is given the option to allow Sunday voting.
TAKING AWAY DROP BOXES
Headlines about the law have warned that the Georgia state legislature voted to remove many drop boxes from the streets, limiting the places where voters could drop off their ballots leading up to Election Day.
In reality, the law authorizes the use of drop boxes for the first time. In 2020, Georgia temporarily allowed people to place their ballots in designated boxes on an emergency basis due to the pandemic. That authorization would have expired, removing the boxes altogether, if state lawmakers hadn’t included a provision to approve them in the new law.
While there may be fewer boxes in the next election than there were in 2020, there would be none if Republican lawmakers didn’t write it into their bill.
FOOD AND WATER
One of the most controversial elements of the law involves whether voters can receive free food and water while they stand in line to cast their ballots. Democrats claim it’s now a crime to pass out drinks to voters at the polls.
It is accurate that language in the bill made approaching voters to give them money, gifts, food, or water within 150 feet of a polling location a misdemeanor.
But that part of the law was designed to crack down specifically on politically affiliated groups handing out free refreshments to voters in line while trying to influence their votes — a practice critics call “line warming.”
The law closes what supporters say was a loophole in existing rules that have long banned soliciting votes too close to a polling location. Election workers, not political groups, can still set up food and water stations at the polls, so long as they remain unmanned.
VOTER ID FOR ABSENTEE BALLOTS
Any registered voter requesting an absentee ballot will, in any future election, need to write his or her driver’s license or state ID number on the application in order to receive a ballot.
Voting rights advocates have long argued that any ID requirements associated with voting disproportionately affect people of color and low-income communities. Georgia, however, offers a free state ID that can be used to request ballots.
And supporters of the law argue the shift toward matching absentee ballots with ID numbers, rather than signatures, would cut down on the kind of chaos witnessed during the 2020 election — when the process of signature matching slowed down the vote count and injected too much subjectivity into which ballots got thrown out.
SHORTENING MAIL-IN VOTING
After Georgia and several other states struggled with the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots that arrived in election offices past their legal deadlines, Georgia lawmakers included provisions in their bill to shorten the window of time for mail-in voting.
This is one of the provisions critics have cited when describing the Georgia law as unduly restrictive. Supporters of the change argue this will help prevent ballots from getting thrown out by election administrators for arriving too late.
The window for requesting a mail-in ballot will now open 11 weeks before Election Day — not 180 days before, as it did previously, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting.
That window will now close two Fridays before Election Day instead of on Friday before. If a voter hasn’t filled out and submitted an application for an absentee ballot by then, he or she will not receive one.
EMPOWERING GOP-APPOINTED OFFICIALS
Georgia counties traditionally had autonomy when it came to administering elections, but the new law potentially gives some of that power to the State Election Board.
In addition to diluting the role of the Georgia secretary of state on the board — that position became a nonvoting member seat — the law allows the State Election Board to make changes in counties that have struggled with processing issues.
“Counties with long-term problems of lines, problems with processing of absentee ballots, and other challenges in administration need accountability, but state officials are limited in what they are able to do to address those problems,” Republican state lawmakers wrote in the bill. “Ensuring there is a mechanism to address local election problems will promote voter confidence and meet the goal of uniformity.”
The State Election Board is technically nonpartisan, but the state Legislature appoints its chair, the state House appoints a member, and the state Senate appoints a member — and Republicans control both chambers. The last two chairs on the board are appointed one each by state Republicans and Democrats, effectively giving the GOP control of a board that has now been empowered to intervene in the way even Democratic counties handle elections.
Summary
Are you as tired of the non-stop lies we are getting from the Left regarding everything? It brings to mind that age-old political joke: “How do you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving!”
Isn’t that applicable in this issue?
It would be humorous if it wasn’t so deadly. Don’t be lulled into believing these are just “accidental” misinterpretations of the Georgia legislature. It was planned, organized, and distributed in perfect Democrat talking point format for all to use to fool Georgians and the rest of us. Confusion is an art of political manipulation that this Democrat Party’s leaders have perfected into art: the “Art of Politicization.” Any issue that’s thrust into the U.S. marketplace of political ideas with which they disagree, they seed as much confusion and misinformation they can possibly muster among Americans. Why do they take this approach? Because they cannot accept the Truth when the Truth does not fit their political plans for the American populace.
And free and fair elections do NOT fit the Democrat Party plans!
In this caustic political environment in which we live, many Americans have simply opted out of paying attention. Paying attention is too costly, requires too much effort, and exhausts far too much of their time and emotions. Democrats are masters at using that fact in this meticulously created plan to feed their minions falsehoods clouded in misrepresented “facts.” And they simply trust the fact that their followers will simply believe everything Democrat leaders feed to them.
Don’t take the bait!
If it’s the Southern Border crisis, COVID-19/Fauci-isms, anti-light skinned Americans racism just because they’re white, or 2020 election lies, they’re all arrows in the quivers of Democrat party leaders to serve one purpose: confuse Americans — ALL Americans with lies.
How can we be certain about this? Push through the noise and distractions and gets facts for yourself. There’s no other way to get the truth that we all must have to make good decisions.
The leaders on the Left don’t think conservatives will make that effort. They KNOW their Democrat followers will not. It’s bad enough that their party members quickly take the bait. We cannot afford for the other half of the nation to “lazy-out” and swallow those same pills.
Find YOUR facts. Doing so is YOUR choice.
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