There was already a perfectly fine election statute in the state of Georgia. Perfectly fine. Chapter 2 of Title 21 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated had just completed governing the November election for President and the January election for two US Senate seats. The Presidential election had withstood lawsuits and multiple audits and been judged to have been exemplary on all counts. It was a perfectly fine statute, except for one thing: The wrong people won. And they were Democrats.
The Republican elites, who currently hold the key to the Governor’s office, as well as majorities in both the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate, could not abide that. Something had to be done. And something was. Senate Bill 202 amended the perfectly fine Chapter 2 of Title 21 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated. It became the Election Integrity Act.
The Election Integrity Act was signed into law last Friday by Governor Brian Kemp behind locked doors, no reporters allowed, in the presence of six other aging white guys (and a photographer, for whose presence and work we are grateful) and in front of a painting of the Calloway Plantation, where, in the mid-19th century, more than 100 Black Slaves toiled day and night to make the very white Calloway family ever so comfortable and rich.
As Governor Kemp, who, ironically, served as Georgia’s Secretary of State from 2010 to 2018, was getting ready to sign this obviously much-needed legislation, State Representative Park Cannon, who is Black, knocked on the locked door asking to be let in to observe. For her trouble, she was arrested by three burly state troopers and hauled off in handcuffs, and now faces two charges: willful obstruction of law enforcement officers by use of threats or violence and preventing or disrupting general assembly sessions. Video taken at the time showed none of that.
After the unfortunate interruption, Kemp signed the amended legislation, shook hands with the six aging white guys, and that was that.
That was that, that is, until certain people, including the current President of the United States, upset with the whole thing, noticed the wording in lines 1,872 through 1,881, which is this:
So, unless you have a 26 foot pole with a drink on the end of it, you’re not giving water to anyone standing in the Georgia Sun patiently waiting to cast a ballot. If you do, you’ll share Representative Cannon’s fate. In his nationally broadcast press conference, President Biden called this provision of the law, “sick.”
A new national study led by economist Keith Chen of the University of California, Los Angeles, found voters in predominantly black neighborhoods waited 29 percent longer, on average, than those in white neighborhoods. They were also about 74 percent more likely to wait for more than half an hour.
The new food and drink prohibition quite understandably got a lot of press attention. It oozes racism. But throughout the amended statute one will find other instances of intentional voter suppression. For example:
- Drop boxes: Created by emergency rule due to the pandemic, these proved extremely popular during the two elections in question. In heavily democratic Fulton County, alone, 146,000 votes were made by absentee ballots placed in drop boxes. Republicans noticed immediately.
“As soon as we may constitutionally convene, we will reform our election laws to secure our electoral process by eliminating at-will absentee voting,” the Georgia Senate Republican Caucus wrote in an 8 December email. “We will require photo identification for absentee voting for cause, and we will crack down on ballot harvesting by outlawing drop boxes.”
The result in the Election Integrity Act: No more than one drop box per county. Officials, at their discretion, may place others, but no more than one per every 100,000 voters.
- Voter challenges: In Georgia, voters are called “electors.” Prior to the new legislation, any elector could challenge the qualifications of anyone applying to register to vote or could challenge anyone whose name appeared on a list of registered electors. The Election Integrity Act added the following sentence: There shall not be a limit on the number of persons whose qualifications such elector may challenge. One can imagine an entire group of people being challenged.
- Mobile Voting Buses: Under the old legislation, groups could use buses, approved by the Secretary of State, as mobile voting centers. Two were used in predominantly minority Fulton County (I cite Fulton County again, because in his infamous call with Secretary of State Raffensperger, President Trump mentioned the County 11 times in his quest to get Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes). The Election Integrity Act prohibits Mobile Voting Buses.
- Absentee Ballots: The Election Integrity Act, which is 2,427 lines long, devotes more than 1,450 to redesigning Georgia’s entire absentee ballot system. It is obvious Georgia’s Republican Party abhors the very thought of absentee ballots, even though a significant number of Republicans vote by absentee ballot. The law prohibits no-excuse absentee ballot application, as well as the universal sending of absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. Absentee ballot violations are considered felonies by the new legislation.
- The Secretary of State: Until Brian Kemp signed the Election Integrity Act, the Secretary of State, as in most U.S. states, was responsible for conducting elections. But Raffensperger and those in his office angered many fellow Georgia Republicans during the presidential and senate races, because, after exhaustive audits, they found no fraud significant enough to change anything. The new law strips him of his authority by creating an Elections Board, whose chairperson will be elected by the legislature. The Secretary of State is now an ex-officio, non-voting member of the Board.
It is understandable why Georgia republicans are going to such lengths to suppress minority voting. Consider this from statistics from Georgia’s Secretary of State:
- Since 2000, the percentage of white voters in Georgia has decreased from 68% to 58%. At the same time, the Black voting percentage has increased from 27% to 33% of total voters.
- From 2000 through 2019, Georgia’s eligible voting population grew by 1.9 million; 48% were Black. White growth was only 26%.
- The majority of single-race Blacks live in the South – 59%
As the proportion of white voters in the nation continues to shrink, the Republican Party is shrinking right along with it. It is unmovably the Party of Barry Goldwater and his small tent, Ronald Reagan and his “welfare queen,” and, of course, Donald Trump and his racist white supremacy. It is exhibiting all the characteristics of the self-cannibalistic rat snake that cannot stop itself from eating itself. Georgia’s Election Integrity Act is nothing more than a desperate attempt by the aforementioned aging white guys to blunt the impact of an irresistible demographic force.
In the end, it will fail. Democracy will prevail.
