Peach Tree Times

Democrats, with President Joe Biden leading the way, have been waging a campaign to convince voters that the recently enacted Georgia voter law is merely masquerading as reform, while its real intent is voter suppression. 

Biden has called SB 202, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in March, “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and a “blatant attack on the Constitution.”

The message isn’t resonating, says Ken Cuccinelli, National Chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative.

“Polls over the past six months show that the needle hasn’t moved,” Cuccinelli told the Peach Tree Times. “The level of support for voter ID (one of the main features of recent election reform laws) hasn’t changed despite the rhetoric. The majority of voters still support voter ID and other election reforms.”

Real Jim Crow laws, Cuccinelli says, were enacted to deny African Americans their right to vote. He cited as example the voting rules enacted in Virginia, where he served as Attorney General from 2010-2014, at the state’s 1902 Constitutional Convention.

“You had poll taxes, literacy tests,” he said. “You had to know things like all the names of the circuit court judges in the state. Not even lawyers could answer that. If you were white and illiterate, you were coached. If you were a descendant of a Confederate veteran, you were exempt.”

Further undermining Democrats' efforts, and the legal action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against the Georgia law in late June, is the majority opinion in the recent U.S. Supreme Court Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee ruling. SCOTUS ruled that two Arizona voting rules, restricting political groups from collecting mail ballots (ballot harvesting) and rejecting votes cast in the wrong precinct on election day, were constitutional – they denied no one the right to vote.

“Alito (Justice Samuel Alito) wrote that Arizona voting rules were not established to disadvantage anyone, that everyone has equal access to voting,” Cuccinelli said.

Besides the DOJ lawsuit, additional lawsuits are alleging the Georgia law violates the anti-discrimination provision, Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 14th Amendment by “placing an unconstitutional burden on the fundamental right to vote.”

None of the actions have any merit, says the Lawyers Democracy Fund (LDF), which advocates for ethics and legal professionalism in elections.  

“Similar, valid election procedures have already been implemented by numerous states across the country, demonstrating the degree to which Senate Bill 202’s provisions are solidly within the mainstream,” an LDF analysis said.

The Georgia law, as summarized by the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, “allows for three weeks of early voting, Sunday voting, two days of Saturday voting, and no excuse absentee voting. Georgia’s new law also replaces signature matching with voter ID, in response to 2,400 ballots in 2018 being rejected because of signature issues. In addition, third parties will not be able to give gifts—such as food or drink—to voters in line to guard against electioneering. Finally, ballot drop boxes will become a permanent fixture in Georgia elections.”

Critics of the Georgia law have primarily focused on the reduced mail-in ballot-request period (from 24 to 11 weeks), stricter voter-identification requirements, fewer ballot drop-boxes with reduced hours and criminalizing providing food and drink to voters waiting in long lines.