Republicans insist these bills are about election security. Here\u2019s a Fox News op-ed<\/a> by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who claims that this law will \u201cmake our elections fairer and more accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats disagree. In this USA Today editorial<\/a><\/em>, two state attorneys general and a former White House ethics chief say these bills \u201call pursue the same fundamental strategy: giving one party an advantage in elections by making it harder for communities of color to cast their ballots.\u201d<\/p>\n This piece from The Washington Post<\/em> summarizes the Georgia law<\/a> in fairly objective terms. It lists the ways the new law restricts voting access, the couple of ways it expands them, and it also lists more restrictive proposals that didn\u2019t make it into the law\u2026 but that might become law in other states.<\/p>\n For those of us who cast our first ballots in an era where polls were only open from 7 AM to 7 PM on Election Day and where absentee ballots were difficult to get, these laws seem almost trivial.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because they aren\u2019t intended to affect us.<\/p>\n These laws are about two things: mollifying far-right and pro-Trump Republicans, and reducing the number of poor and Black people who vote.<\/p>\n Because as we\u2019ve seen in the past two Presidential elections, sometimes winning or losing comes down to just a few votes in just a few places.<\/p>\n \u201cDead people are voting.\u201d \u201cIllegal immigrants are voting.\u201d \u201cPeople are voting two and three times.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard these complaints for years. But there\u2019s no evidence that they\u2019re true. They\u2019re popular among the far right, because it feeds into their belief that \u201cthose people\u201d are ruining the country.<\/p>\n In every election there are a handful of cases of voter fraud\u2026 such as this case<\/a> of a Pennsylvania man who voted as his dead mother and his dead mother-in-law \u2013 for Donald Trump. When these cases are found they\u2019re prosecuted\u2026 as was this case of a legal immigrant who thought it was legal for her to vote, and was deported for it<\/a>.<\/p>\n There simply is no widespread voter fraud, despite the endless claims of Donald Trump and his sycophants. But when honest Republicans try to explain that, they\u2019re called \u201can enemy of the people\u201d and find themselves being primaried from the far right<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is the number one reason behind these voter suppression laws. They let Republicans tell their base \u201csee, we believe you \u2013 we\u2019re doing something about this horrible problem \u2013 please keep voting for us.\u201d<\/p>\n And the lie of massive voter fraud continues.<\/p>\n Democrats control the Senate (barely) for one reason: Stacey Abrams and her team worked tirelessly on voter registration and voter turnout, largely in the Black community. The result is that Georgia elected its first Democratic Senator in 16 years and has two Democratic Senators for the first time in 18 years.<\/p>\n But Raphael Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler by only 93,272 votes, and Jon Ossoff defeated David Perdue by 54,944 \u2013 1.2% of the vote. Joe Biden beat Trump by 11,779 votes, which caused Trump to call Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to pressure him to \u201cfind 11,780 more votes.\u201d<\/p>\n That attempted voter fraud is being investigated<\/a>, but not yet prosecuted.<\/p>\n When elections are this close, every vote counts. The usual way to deal with that is to encourage your side to vote. But it works just as well if you can discourage or prevent the other side from voting.<\/p>\n I was legally entitled to vote absentee when I was away from home in college. But it was so much trouble I didn\u2019t. If Republicans can make it harder for people on the edges to vote, many of them won\u2019t.<\/p>\n And the majority of people on the edges tend to vote Democratic.<\/p>\n Intent matters. The intent of these laws is to insure that fewer poor and Black people vote.<\/p>\n Voter ID laws are always portrayed as economically neutral because you can get a state issued ID for free. Sure, the ID card doesn\u2019t cost you anything. But getting to the point where you can get it does.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t already have a government ID, you\u2019re going to need your birth certificate. Do you have your birth certificate sitting around, in a place where you can find it?<\/p>\n George Chidi is the most knowledgeable and down-to-earth journalist I know when it comes to Georgia politics. Recently he had this to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n No state offers a free birth certificate. The cheapest is North Dakota at $8. Michigan is $34. The average is around $20. Obtaining one by mail can require more money, time \u2026 and a place you can pick up your mail. Some states are easier to work with than others. Reason save you if you were born in New York \u2014 the backlog for processing birth certificate requests is months-long.<\/p>\n Now complicate this with name changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you don\u2019t have a car, you\u2019ll have trouble getting to the DMV or other ID center. If you work long hours, you may not be able to get there when it\u2019s open. Now, it\u2019s true that none of this will prevent someone who\u2019s determined from getting the necessary documents and navigating the voting laws.<\/p>\n But when exercising a fundamental right is easy for you and me but requires determination to overcome hardship for someone else, that\u2019s a problem. And when that hardship is caused by Republican-driven laws passed for the sheer purpose of creating a hardship, that\u2019s discrimination.<\/p>\n Voter ID laws are a modern day poll tax \u2013 they\u2019re neutral on the surface, but their intent is to prevent people on the margins from voting. And they do.<\/p>\n We can still contact our state representatives about preventing such laws in states where they haven\u2019t been enacted. In Georgia, that time has passed.<\/p>\n Some of Georgia\u2019s large corporations are complaining, but they waited until the bill became law to do it. Many are calling for a boycott of Georgia \u2013 Major League Baseball has already moved this year\u2019s All Star Game out of Atlanta.<\/p>\n Stacey Abrams is advising against a boycott<\/a>, because much of the suffering it would cause would impact the very people the boycott is designed to help. Other disagree.<\/p>\n The courts will likely be useless. In previous years such a law would have had to pass a Justice Department review, but a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2013 overturned that. Chief Justice John Roberts said \u201cthe country has changed<\/a>\u201d since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and such review was no longer needed. The Georgia law clearly shows that it still is.<\/p>\n![\"voter](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2021\/04\/I-Voted-1024x536.jpg\" "\\"voter")
<\/a><\/p>\nPerpetuating the voter fraud myth<\/h2>\n
Chipping away at the edges of Democratic voters<\/h2>\n
But the ID is free!<\/h2>\n
What to do<\/h2>\n