Georgia’s new broad electoral law will add an identity requirement for voters who request an absentee ballot, shorten the length of second rounds, and effectively deliver the electoral council to the legislature. It also limits inboxes and prohibits people from giving voters food or drinks in line. Voters in Georgia’s primaries faced lines of several hours sometimes, particularly near and in Atlanta, a strongly democratic area in the narrowly divided state.
Vice President Kamala Harris echoed Biden’s support for Congress to pass electoral reform, telling reporters on Friday that Georgia’s recent law was intentionally designed to prevent “entire populations from voting”.
In a statement, Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, criticized the law’s characterizations as intended to restrict voter access, saying it instead implements new security measures and expands access.
“The left’s ‘voter suppression’ cries sound as hollow as the continually unmasked allegations of ‘massive electoral fraud’ in Georgia’s 2020 elections. … Its cataclysmic predictions about the effects of this law are simply unfounded. The next the election will prove it, but I will not hold my breath waiting for the left and the media to admit they were wrong, “he said.
The changes approved by Republicans in the state legislature and signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp on Thursday came after Democrats won a decisive Senate election in January, giving Democrats a majority in the chamber.
Republicans inside and outside Georgia, especially those who support former President Donald Trump, have imposed new voting restrictions, citing “electoral integrity”, although there is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud. Democrats and supporters of the right to vote called the efforts “voter suppression”.
Biden repressed efforts to restrict access to voting at his first formal press conference on Thursday, calling them “sick”.
“What worries me is how anti-American this whole initiative is,” said Biden.
Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) Also hit Georgia’s new voting restrictions on Friday.
“What the state legislature did yesterday was to try to arrest the voices and votes of the people,” said Warnock.
Benjamin Din contributed to this report.