The voting rights organization founded by Stacey Abrams criticized the election legislation proposal that the Georgia House of Representatives passed on Monday, calling it “one of the most rigid and undemocratic pieces of voter suppression legislation” in the country.
The HB 531 bill has met with great resistance in recent days, not just from Fair Fight Action, which Abrams founded after she lost the race for governor of Georgia in 2018, but from other Democrats and voting rights organizations as she went along. in the state legislature. Republicans passed the bill in the Republican-controlled House on Monday, sending it to the state Senate for consideration.
In a Twitter conversation on Monday afternoon, Fair Fight Action suggested that action by Georgia Republicans to approve the bill was “one more step” toward changing the voting rights of state residents “back to Jim Crow days. “
HB 531 “is a dangerous attempt to reverse voting rights, leading to longer queues and more restrictive rules for absentee votes, while limiting weekend voting and threatening Georgian privacy by creating opportunities for identity theft only to request a ballot in the mail, “organization tweeted. In addition to saying that the proposed legislation would make voting more difficult for people of color, the group’s topic on Twitter also suggested that tax increases would be needed to meet the defined requirements.
The bill “does nothing but harm voters and feed conspiracy theories to undermine our democratic institutions,” tweeted Fair Fight Action.
THREAD: Today, Georgia House Republicans have taken another step to send voting rights in Georgia back to the days of Jim Crow and forced to pass # HB531, advancing in one of the most rigid and undemocratic pieces of voter suppression legislation in the country. #gapol
– Fair fight (@fairfightaction) March 1, 2021
One of the bill’s sponsors is state deputy Barry Fleming of the 121st district of Georgia, who was named the new chairman of the House’s Special Electoral Integrity Committee earlier this year. Fleming told GPB News that the bill was “designed to bring our voters’ confidence back into our electoral system” after the 2020 election and said he would also seek to reduce voting confusion by introducing “more uniform voting times. “across the state.
VIRGINIE KIPPELEN / AFP via Getty Images
Georgia became a focal point of the 2020 election cycle, when polls showed then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in a close race with then President Donald Trump. Biden ended up defeating Georgia, turning the state from red to blue for the first time in a presidential race since 1992. Allegations of electoral fraud have led some to question the outcome of the election in Georgia and other battle states, although the allegations were widely denied and Biden’s victory was finally certified in Congress.
Among the criticisms directed at HB 531 is that it would limit early voting and place additional restrictions on absentee ballots, both against which Georgia’s ACLU political director, Christopher Bruce, spoke during a rally held on the steps of the State Capitol. Georgia. of the House vote on Monday.
“Every eligible Georgian who wants to vote, making his voice heard must be able to do so easily. But the HB 531 does not reflect that goal,” said Bruce in his comments prepared for Monday’s rally. “At each step, the project raises new obstacles to access and destroys much of Georgia’s existing voting infrastructure.”
Georgia’s Democrats also spoke out against the legislation on Monday, saying it “would threaten millions of Georgia’s voters’ access to the polls.”
The approval of the bill in the Georgia House marked a “dark day” for the state, according to US Congresswoman Nikema Williams of Georgia, who serves as president of the Georgia Democratic Party.
“Republicans voted as caucus to enact the most blatantly racist attacks on the right to vote in the South since Jim Crow, after losing in an electoral system that they planned, built and supervised,” Williams said in a statement. “Let history show that instead of fighting for our democracy, these cowards betrayed Georgia voters, threw away the truth and facts and tried to undo Georgia’s legacy as a home for civil rights and accessible elections.”
Newsweek contacted Fleming’s office for comment, but received no response in time for publication.