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The Georgia GOP refuse to accept their defeat in the 2020 presidential election and the subsequent congressional runoffs.
Georgians choose a Black man, a Jewish man, and a Catholic man over the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant candidates that have always represented the state. To the GOP, this can only mean that the voting system is flawed. Less than a week after introducing legislation to protect Donald Trump from prosecution, the Republican party is introducing a voting bill that will disenfranchise Black voters.
The bill comes as Georgia has become ground zero for election law changes in the wake of the 2020 election. Republicans in the state, citing baseless allegations of voter fraud pushed by disgraced President Donald Trump and other GOP officials, have moved to roll back access to mail-in voting and early voting.
The Republican House bill would give counties less time to send out absentee ballots and do away with Sunday voting, while the Senate version would repeal no-excuse absentee voting and automatic registration.
Georgia voting rights groups are denouncing the sweeping voting bill introduced this week by Republican state legislators as a direct attack on democracy and on Black voters.
These affronts on minority voting rights have been sharply rebuked in a statement by New South super PAC founder Nsé Ufot:
After stunning losses in the general election and January runoffs, it’s no mystery why Georgia Republicans have rushed to enact restrictions on early, absentee, and weekend voting. They know their only hope for winning elections is to restrict the right to vote and silence Black voices, Georgia Republicans saw what happens when Black voters are empowered and show up at the polls, and now they’re launching a concerted effort to suppress the votes and voices of Black Georgians.
Nearly 30 voting rights groups pushed back against the Georgia bill, but overall, Republicans across the country have made voting laws a priority for this session. A recent analysis found three times as many pieces of legislation at the state level to restrict voting access as there were at this time a year ago.
Republican state legislators and secretaries of state on Wednesday announced the creation of a commission that will examine current voting laws.
