Georgia has officially passed its "Brad Raffensperger Is a Traitor" Act, which reduces the power of the Secretary of State to oversee vote counting. This was prompted, of course, by Raffensperger's unwillingness to cheat in order to "find" a few thousand more votes for Donald Trump, something that horrified Georgia's Republican Party. To prevent this from ever happening again, the bill removes the Secretary of State as chairman of the State Election Board and instead makes it a position that's appointed directly by the state legislature. This should ensure that the head of the board can be expected to toe the party line in future elections.
The bill does a whole bunch of other hideous stuff too, which Ari Berman outlines here. Among the weirder provisions is one that prohibits people from handing out water to people who are in line to vote. Seriously.
But why? This is so obviously malicious that it makes Georgia look like a goon state. It might not be Bull Connor and his firehoses, but it sure has the amateur-hour flavor of old-school Jim Crow. You can almost imagine a passel of good ol' boys chewing the fat when one of them says, Hey, I heard that colored folks dehydrate faster than white folks. Maybe we should take away their water. Everybody guffaws, and then the stupidest one of them adds it to the bill.
What's more, it probably accomplishes almost nothing. Take a look at this:
These are national numbers, but I don't suppose Georgia is very much different. What it shows is that even in very low-income neighborhoods, only about 16% of voters wait more than an hour in line—and it drops to almost nothing above 90 minutes.
This is nothing to be proud of. Anything over 30 minutes ought to be a source of shame. Nevertheless, there really aren't all that many people who are in line so long that a lack of water is going to send them panting home. In fact, what will probably happen is that Democrats will mount a big publicity campaign around water and everyone will show up with water bottles from now on, waving them in the faces of the Republican poll watchers. Republicans will be embarrassed forever by this show of idiocy and Democratic turnout will probably go up.
Of course, the Georgia bill also gives the (extremely Republican) State Election Board the power to take over "underperforming" county boards like, say, the (extremely Democratic) board of Fulton County, home of Atlanta. So maybe they don't have to care about Democratic turnout at all. If it's too high for their taste, they just need to declare a few counties underperforming and then push it down to whatever turnout they need. Vladimir Putin would be proud.
“ makes Georgia look like a goon state”
You sound as if you think Georgia doesn’t want to look like a goon state.
Big Andersonville energy.
Georgia on my mind....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DFhuE_XeT8
I hope it's a felony to help people in line 'cause felons are not allowed to vote.
/s
Velociryx mode is spreading.
It already IS a goon state. They'll probably just ensure that the waiting time is much longer in certain districts & then close all nearby public restrooms when voting is in progress.
Public voiding now a felony.
The next step in voter suppression may be the reduction in polling places in Atlanta and Savannah; if local officials insist on keeping polling places open in the wrong neighborhoods, the legislature can just replace them and order those polling places closed. After all, if Black people in neighboring Alabama once marched from Selma to Montgomery, their Atlanta counterparts can stand in a fifteen mile long line without water if they really want to vote.
"Anything over 30 minutes ought to be a source of shame."
In every country, there are things that seem normal but which are truly weird as seen from outside. This is one of them: in nearly half a century of voting in the UK, in multiple places, I have yet to have to wait even 30 *seconds*.
My wife and I have been voting in New England for over thirty years; have never waited more than a few minutes. Before that, Minnesota, where we were in line long enough once for our then babe-in-arms to be sick into my wife’s purse.
Yeah, I never waited to vote here in California. Especially after vote-by-mail became the norm.
I'm a bit disappointed I have to walk all the way to the end of my driveway to put the ballot in my mailbox. Still waiting for vote-online.
We have only had to wait a couple times.
When they started moving around the polling places to 'save' money, they 'took away' the polling place that was where all the poor people were (we were in an apartment on the edge of town) and then we had to wait an hour.
But they brought back the polling place after the automated machine debacle.
And of course our new, extra-Trumpy SCOTUS will declare that all this is perfectly legit...
As long as Amy Crate n' Barrel's adopted Black Haitian children can vote (Republican) without issue, she ain't going to care.
There is no way it is constitutional to ban people from giving food and water to other people who happen to be standing in a line. I think a more likely course of action is that thousands of activists hand out water during the next election and dare local officials to enforce this absurd law.
I agree with this.
GTTA. I see hundreds, thousands handing out water and turning to face the police, putting their hands out, daring officers to cuff them. It will be a cause that overwhelms the state with Democratic activists.
I expect Democratic turnout to soar in states that pass these terrible laws.
They'll call that a riot and declare martial law and suspend the election.
They just arrested somebody for knocking politely on a door.
"Among the weirder provisions is one that prohibits people from handing out water to people who are in line to vote."
Is it possible to sell food and water to those in line, as opposed to "handing it out"? How about dumping a case of water "close to" the line, allowing people to take as they need?
The Wimpy Proviso.
So you can't "give away" water. But can you sell it for the promise of 10 cents to be paid in a week?
Preferably the following Tuesday. The J Wellington Wimpy program...
The liberals hated the South for giving Blacks water from the hose in the 1960s. They hate the South for responding to that criticism by withholding water by the bottle from the Blacks. The only conclusion I can reach is Yankeelibtards hate the South, will always hate the South, & can never be happy with what the South does.
Prior to moving to a Red State, it's never taken me more than 15 minutes to ever vote in my entire life. 2018, it took close to 90 minutes. There was an 18 year old girl standing next to me who was voting in her first election. She was trying to vote during study hall, and the polling place was actually her high school. She missed all of study hall, and then most of her next class. That shouldn't happen.
And just yesterday my state (MO) decided to vote for new restrictions on voting by requiring Photo ID -- it's all about election integrity confidence, you know. (They also decided that they weren't going to fund any Medicaid expansion, despite the fact that the we voted for the expansion about a year ago.)
I kind of missing being in a State that actually wants me to vote.
A slight historical edit here:
We're talking Georgia, so the correct analogy is not Bull Connor and fire hoses (no, not even Bull Connor and vicious dogs).
No, in Georgia we have to talk about Lester Maddox and his Pickrick Restaurant, and then about Maddox's gubernatorial campaign, where he handed out pick handles to his many supporters. And, Georgia being Georgia, we also have to remember that Maddox won that race.
Now, of course, a lot of current Republicans would like to go back to those good ol' days of good ol' boys running everything. And what happened yesterday is a giant step towards that goal.
Many parts of Georgia's shiny new Jim Crow law will no doubt end up before our current Supreme Court. Odds are, they'll rule that "oh, running elections is up to the states, and we can't interfere in that great exercise of state's rights." Yeah.
The smartass New York Jews remember.
(Also, funny how Randy Newman hasn't been cancelled of Rednecks or Sail Away. Almost like intent matters.)
"Republicans will be embarrassed forever by this show of idiocy"
LOL Kevin you so funny. Repugniphants don't em-bare-ass. Seriously, they're incapable.
"Republicans will be embarrassed forever by this show of idiocy and Democratic turnout will probably go up."
Republicans are locked and loaded and have our democracy in the crosshairs. This won't be the first time they've pulled the trigger. In the past we've been lucky to duck in time, or survive our wounds after a trip to intensive care.
But Kevin doesn't think it's anything to get upset about. No, from the friendly confines of Orange County it's all an amusing sideshow, just some idiocy that Republicans will be embarrassed about forever.
I don't expect to agree with anybody all the time, but the percentage here is getting worse every week.
four things:
republicans are pushing out anyone in their base who has half an ounce of decency in them. that may not be many but it's enough to tip statewide elections against them as we saw in november and in january. this won't help their cause.
generally speaking, voter suppression doesn't work. it pisses people off and pissed off people are motivated people.
there is no one on the right in georgia or anywhere else for that matter who comes close to matching the political savvy and determination of stacy abrams. woe unto anyone who underestimates her and the forces she commands.
the demographic trends that have made georgia purple are going to continue for the foreseeable future.
> What's more, it probably accomplishes almost nothing.
It's less about what the law is than how the law is enforced.
This is one of many cases where aggregate data is useless. A lot of low-income precincts are in big cities with Democratic administrations. You need to look at the jurisdictions run by vote-suppressing Republicans (redundantly speaking). There were certainly anecdotal reports of people waiting many hours in line. We need accurate, disaggregated data about how frequent such long lines were, where they were, and the characteristics of the function relating wait time to line-leaving. With such data, we could predict how many votes aren’t cast due to insufficient opportunities.
We also need a Supreme Court which will not just pay lip service to Brown v Board but also return to its precedent of disparate impact - that discriminatory intent does not need to be proved if a law disadvantages people on any disallowed criterion (race, religion, ethnicity, sex, sexual identity or preference, etc.)
"Anything over 30 minutes ought to be a source of shame."
Anything over 30 minutes ought to be a civil rights violation, subject to fines, civil suits, federal action... (With very carefully, very narrowly drawn exceptions for unforeseeable catastrophes.)
This has been going on long enough that it's clear there needs to be a bigger stick to get states and counties to provide adequate resources to allow their citizens to vote in a timely fashion. We either care about voting rights or we don't. Furrowed brows aren't going to get it done.
Yes!
As Kevin notes, voter restriction/intimidation bills typically help increase Democratic voter turnout. If Abrams can do what she did in 2018 and 2020 for 2022, Georgia is going to be the next blue state.
Personally, I can't wait to vote for her to be the next Governor.
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I wonder how the film industry, or any major industries for that matter, will respond to this. I mean, it would only take a few marquee names saying they won’t work there to cause some noticeable economic damage. It’s a bad corporate look to support voter suppression.
“in very low-income neighborhoods, only about 16% of voters wait more than an hour in line“
So, this may be wrong-headed, but I’m wondering how that data was collected. If you are surveying people after they vote as they are exiting the polling place, you would not be capturing the people who gave up and went home — and therefore might not be considered “voters.”
Can't they simply provide for the Georgia members of the electoral college to be appointed by the State Republican Committee? It would be much simpler and avoid all these snide accusations of racist motives.