Mr. President, your misinformation on Georgia’s voting law is dangerous

4/15/21
 
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from The Washington Post,
4/14/21:

The reaction to Georgia’s new election law has me worried again. Though I have not received any threats yet, thankfully, that same foreboding is creeping up again as the president of the United States and others once again spread lies about what is going on in Georgia.

So I plead with the president once again: Someone is going to get hurt. Your words matter. The facts matter.

First, as The Post has correctly noted, the new legislation does not decrease early voting hours, though President Biden falsely claimed otherwise. In fact, early voting hours were expanded by adding an extra mandatory Saturday of early voting and continuing to allow Sunday voting. Early voting hours must be open from at least 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., a step up from the “normal business hours” required by previous law. Counties can extend those hours to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., as many have done in the past.

The president alleged last month that the bill “makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line.” But providing gifts of any value to voters to reward them for casting a ballot has been illegal in Georgia for years.

The president has also said that adding a photo ID number requirement to absentee ballots “adds rigid restrictions . . . that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters.” Leaving aside that majorities of Black voters and Georgia Democrats support the added security measure, studies show that photo ID laws don’t decrease turnout.

Another wild allegation is that changes to the State Election Board allow the legislature to overturn elections. That is false

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