Georgia Lawmakers Dehumanize Mutual Aid with Voter Suppression Bill
Using Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen as their motivating rationale, Georgia legislators, as has now already been widely reported, rammed through a suite of voter suppression laws yesterday.
In addition to imposing restrictive voter ID requirements, curtailing early voting, closing polls at 5:00 pm, eliminating drop boxes, and more, the new law also greatly expands the legislature’s control over the election process in the state. For example, whereas heretofore the secretary of state served as chair of the state election board, now this position will be appointed by the legislature. Remember that Secretary of State Brad Raffenperger, a Republican, refused to buy into Trump’s “big lie” and would not bend to Trump’s pressures to “find” enough votes to out him over the top in Georgia. A legislature sympathetic to Trump would have been empowered — and is now so empowered — to appoint a chair that very well might have been amenable to Trump’s wishes.
Additionally, the bill also enables the legislature to take over the administration of county elections, meaning, for example, that the legislature could assume control of, say, administering voting in Fulton County, a heavily Democratic county that played a significant role in electing Joe Biden as well as Democratic…
