"You name them... your assertion. Racist attitudes are everywhere, but show up in laws much more in some states."

SB 202 leaves no-excuse absentee voting in place and expands early voting in Georgia by mandating an additional day of weekend voting in all Georgia counties. It also continues Sunday voting in counties that want it.

YOUR COMMENT???


In his statement, Biden also alleged that the new law “ends voting hours early.” Even the left-leaning Washington Post agreed that wasn’t true, giving the claim four Pinocchios and saying “there’s no evidence that is the case.”

The reality is that Georgia remains a national leader in access to the polls.

Georgia has the most successful automatic voter-registration program in the country. Automatically registering eligible voters through the Georgia Department of Driver Services, which confirms citizenship prior to registration, makes it easier for eligible voters to vote, and ensures that election officials have accurate, up-to-date information. Notably, President Biden’s home state of Delaware does not offer this to voters.

Stacey Abrams is pushing for just 15 days of early voting, below the 16 days Georgia has offered its voters for years. SB 202 has built on that, requiring 17 days of early voting at minimum, including two Saturdays. By contrast, Abrams recently praised New Jersey for having nine days of early voting. If more access is better, how is nine days praiseworthy but 17 suppressive? Ditto for President Biden. His home state of Delaware doesn’t offer any early voting. And though Georgia voters can request an absentee ballot without explanation, President Biden’s home state of Delaware still requires an excuse.


YOUR COMMENT??? How about a boycott of Delaware and New Jersey???



The legislation moves Georgia from the subjective signature-match identity-verification process for absentee-ballot voting to objective ID numbers from photo IDs, free voter IDs, or other documents. I introduced this concept last year with the absentee-ballot-request portal, and it won bipartisan praise. With such close elections, moving to an objective standard takes pressure off of our local election officials.

It is also convenient for voters. Over 97 percent of Georgia’s voters have a driver’s-license number associated with their voter-registration record.

To ensure voters actually get their absentee ballots in time to cast them, SB 202 puts reasonable deadlines in place for receiving absentee-ballot applications and sending out absentee ballots, and moves Georgia closer in line with other state timelines. The massive increase in absentee ballots last year stressed Georgia’s election system. Over 500,000 people requested an absentee ballot but showed up in person anyway. This slowed down in-person voting and increased the possibility of double voting.

YOUR COMPLAINT???

SB 202 takes steps to cut down voting lines. If voters have to wait more than an hour on Election Day, the relevant county has to add voting equipment or split the precinct if there are too many voters assigned to that precinct. The bill directs voters to cast ballots in their assigned precincts, eliminating the extra steps for processing out-of-precinct voters that lead to long lines.

YOUR COMPLAINT???

The bill also takes steps to minimize the voter confusion that undermines integrity in elections. SB 202 requires third-party groups to clearly identify who they are on absentee-ballot applications they send to voters. My office received countless calls from individuals who thought they were sent several absentee ballots because third-party organizations kept sending request forms. SB 202 codifies the early processing of absentee ballots to allow for quicker posting of results and more transparency. It also requires counties to publish the total number of absentee ballots they received during the election soon after the polls close to avoid the perception that ballots came in after the deadline.

YOUR COMPLAINT???

SB 202 clarifies that giving away food or drink within 150 feet of a polling place is considered campaigning and is not allowed. The polling place should be a place where voters are free from pressure and influence and can cast their vote in peace and confidence.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is little controversy about the same rules in New York, on which the Georgia’s legislature modeled their own provision.


WHERE IS YOUR CALL TO BOYCOTT New York State???

Now, first of all, notice what is not prohibited here. Voters can still bring bottled water or other food or beverages with them to stand on line to vote, as people often do when waiting at Disney World or to buy concert tickets or in other public places where people stand on long lines. Voters can still also, if they like, order food; the bill doesn’t stop the Domino’s Pizza man or the local hot dog cart or taco truck from doing business. And if you feel impelled to donate food and drink to voters, you can still do that, too; you just have to give it to the poll workers so they can put it out for general use. The president’s claim that “You can’t provide water for people about to vote” is just false. What you cannot do under the new Georgia law is deploy people in National Rifle Association t-shirts and MAGA hats to hand out free Koch-brothers-financed, Federalist Society–branded pizza to voters.

Never mind that if outraged groups were truly interested in just making sure waiting voters got water, they would be more than satisfied with giving the water to the poll manager to distribute, as allowed by SB 202. These groups can also just stand 25 feet away from voting lines and 150 feet from the precinct and let voters comes to them.

In other words, this entire controversy is not about people dropping dead of hunger and thirst on long voting lines at all. It’s about electioneering around the polling place by people looking to advertise that they represent a cause, and who try to influence voters by giving them free stuff. Across the country today, we already have lots of laws against this sort of thing. There is nothing wrong with Georgia trying to limit it.

While state laws vary, many other states have electioneering bans that prevent people from giving gifts to voters, approaching voters on line or in the process of voting, or wearing or displaying political messages around the polling place. Minnesota law has a broad ban on approaching voters:

No one except an election official or an individual who is waiting to register or to vote or an individual who is conducting exit polling shall stand within 100 feet of the building in which a polling place is located. Minn. Stat. § 204C.06

In 2018, the Supreme Court in Minn. Voters Alliance v. Mansky found that Minnesota had a valid basis for its ban on voters wearing any sort of political badge, button, or insignia inside a polling place. Chief Justice Roberts, noting that the majority of states had some restrictions on campaign-related clothing and accessories at the polls, explained:

We see no basis for rejecting Minnesota’s determination that some forms of advocacy should be excluded from the polling place, to set it aside as an island of calm in which voters can peacefully contemplate their choices. . . . Casting a vote is a weighty civic act, akin to a jury’s return of a verdict, or a representative’s vote on a piece of legislation. It is a time for choosing, not campaigning. The State may reasonably decide that the interior of the polling place should reflect that distinction.

Seven Justices joined that opinion, which nonetheless found that the law entangled Minnesota too much into deciding what messages were political; the two dissenters would have upheld the law.

Montana’s law aims directly at campaigns handing out food, drink, or tobacco:

On election day, a candidate, a family member of a candidate, or a worker or volunteer for the candidate’s campaign may not distribute alcohol, tobacco, food, drink, or anything of value to a voter within a polling place or a building in which an election is being held or within 100 feet of an entrance to the building in which the polling place is located. § 13-35-211, MCA

New York makes “Furnishing money or entertainment to induce attendance at polls” a class A misdemeanor, and explicitly includes handing out “meat, drink, tobacco, refreshment or provision” unless it is worth less than a dollar and the person providing it is not identified:

Any person who…in respect of any election during the hours of voting…gives or provides, or causes to be given or provided, or shall pay, wholly or in part, for any meat, drink, tobacco, refreshment or provision to or for any person, other than [poll workers and other voting officials], except any such meat, drink, tobacco, refreshment or provision having a retail value of less than one dollar, which is given or provided to any person in a polling place without any identification of the person or entity supplying such provisions, is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. N.Y. Elec. Law § 17-140

Biden’s own home state of Delaware bans giving gifts or rewards to voters in presidential primary elections:

Whoever…pays, transfers or delivers, or offers…any money, or other valuable thing as a compensation, inducement or reward for the giving or withholding or in any manner influencing the giving or withholding a vote…shall be fined not less than $100 nor more than $5,000 or imprisoned not less than 1 month nor more than 3 years, or both. 15 Del. C. § 3167

Laws of these sorts have been the product of experience. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Kentucky, in Ellis v. Meeks, threw out the results of a primary election where the winner, Meeks (who prevailed by eight votes) had handed out free food at the polling place, and made it available to voters. The court rejected the argument that this was all harmless because there was no direct evidence that he had changed any votes or had demanded any explicit quid pro quo from voters:

At ten of the fifteen voting stations in the 11th Ward, Meeks made free food available to anyone present, glad-handed voters as they entered, and spoke with voters as they signed in to vote. Based upon this evidence, we… hold that Meeks’ non-verbal conduct solicited votes and amounted to electioneering within 500 feet of a building where votes were being cast…We can conceive of no other explanation for his actions…. We find that making free food available to precinct workers and voters was an item of value offered by Meeks in exchange for their votes or moral support in violation of [Kentucky law].

Georgia’s law follows the same line of reasoning: The obvious motive of showing up to hand things directly to voters, rather than just providing them to poll workers to distribute, is to influence their votes.


YOUR COMPLAINT???


The bill also includes more practical measures that will help smooth election administration. Counties can now hire poll workers from neighboring counties if needed and if the neighboring county has enough of their own staff. It also requires political parties to train their poll watchers on relevant laws and regulations.

YOUR COMPLAINT???

"If these things sound like commonsense solutions, that’s because they are. SB 202 will increase confidence in our election system, ease the burden on local election officials, and expand access to the polls"

Obviously the stated goals are most certainly something that Liberals have no interest in, and will fight to the death to prevent.(SARCASM)