Empire State Today

A Georgia election law that expands voting access and has stricter absentee voting rules has been criticized by Democratic leaders for suppressing the vote by being too restrictive, particularly for minorities.

Senate Bill 202, also known as the Election Integrity Act of 2021, was signed March 26 by Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The act faced criticism from President Joe Biden who called the bill “an un-American law to deny people the right to vote,” according to his March 26 statement on the bill. 

SB 202, among several elements, institutes a voter identification requirement, forms stricter rules for absentee voting and expands access to early voting, the bill’s text says.

Despite the criticisms, Georgia's new law ensures nearly double the early voting days of New York.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed access to early voting when he signed legislation in 2019 allowing early voting eight days before an election, an act described by Cuomo’s office as the beginning of a “process of bringing New York state's voting laws into the 21st Century,” a news release said. However, Georgia’s 2022 election cycle will have more than 15 days of early voting, CBS News said.

“There will be at least 17 days of early voting, starting on the Monday that is 22 days before Election Day until the Friday before an election,” CBS News said.

Biden seemed to suggest a countermove to SB 202 in urging Congress to pass the For the People Act of 2021 (House Resolution 1) that, in part, would ban state voter ID laws, “forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID” and “mandate no-fault absentee ballots,” The Heritage Foundation said. HR 1 is in the Senate for consideration, after the House passed the resolution March 3, govtrack said.

“[SB 202] adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters,” Biden said in the March 26 statement. “And it makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line – lines Republican officials themselves have created by reducing the number of polling sites across the state, disproportionately in black neighborhoods. This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end.”

SB 202 is not Jim Crow, Kemp said in a news release. Brutal state and local statutes legalized racial segregation through Jim Crow laws enacted from the post-Civil War era until 1968, the History website said. Jim Crow laws denied blacks the right to vote, to have jobs or to receive an education.

“There is nothing Jim Crow about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot,” Kemp said in the news release.

Georgians can be assured that through SB 202 their elections are “secure, accessible and fair,” Kemp said in remarks on YouTube after signing the bill March 26.

“We quickly began working with the House and Senate on further reforms to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. The bill I signed into law today does just that,” Kemp said. “First and foremost, SB 202 replaces a signature match process with a state-issued ID requirement to request and submit an absentee ballot. When voting in person in the state of Georgia, you must have a photo ID. It only makes sense for the same standard to apply to absentee ballots as well.” 

About 75% of likely U.S. voters support a photo identification requirement before being allowed to vote, and 21% opposed the requirement, a Rasmussen Reports survey found in March 2021.

David Breeding said in comments on LegiScan that he didn’t understand why people are upset by SB 202, in particular, with the voter ID requirement.

“Please explain to me why there isn't an uproar to show an ID to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, board an airplane, apply for SNAP assistance, drive a car, purchase liquor, etc.,” Breeding said. “A state identification is free to all who want to get one if they don't have a drivers' license and many already have one. This bill is to prevent fraudulent voting and does not suppress voting.”

Three separate recounts of the 2020 election in Georgia turned up no evident of significant voter fraud.

Voter suppression in the United States is a false assumption, Hans von Spakovsky, said in an election integrity commentary for the Heritage Foundation.

“There was higher turnout among all races in 2020 when compared to the 2016 election. Black Americans turned out at 63%, compared to 60% in 2016,” von Spakovsky said.

Opponents of the Georgia measure, however, say their concerns are with the 2022 and 2024 elections, not the 2020 votes.

While Biden criticized SB 202 for being racist in its restrictions, many Democratic states such as Biden’s native state of Delaware have policies that seem to make it harder for minorities to vote, Russell Berman wrote in The Atlantic.

“But even once the GOP-passed measure takes effect, Georgia citizens will still have far more opportunities to vote before Election Day than their counterparts in the president’s home state, where one in three residents is black or Latino,” Berman said. “To Republicans, Biden’s criticism of the Georgia law smacks of hypocrisy.”

Many states in the Northeast limit the time in which opponents can rally a base through policies that prevent most early voting, Berman said. 

The nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research released an analysis that said that “Delaware, Connecticut and New York rank in the bottom third of states in their access to early and mail-in balloting,” Berman wrote.