Peach Tree Times

After record early voting turnout in Georgia for the 2022 midterms, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Editorial Board called on President Joe Biden to apologize for his “Jim Crow 2.0” remarks on Georgia’s election voting law. Black voters were the second largest demographic to vote in Georgia with over 700,000 votes. An election official in Georgia said the record numbers at the polls show that there could not be systemic voter suppression.

“Control of the House and Senate still hangs in the balance, but one Tuesday result was clear: Pres. Biden’s 'Jim Crow 2.0' rhetoric about state voting laws was a nasty political distortion,” The WSJ Editorial Board said in an op-ed. 

According to a release from the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia voters “shattered” the 2.5 million mark for early voting. Early voting for the 2022 midterm elections in Georgia broke the record for the most votes cast before Election Day ever. In 2018, Georgia voters cast 1.8 million ballots early whereas in 2022, Georgia voters cast 2.8 million ballots early, close to the 2.6 million cast in 2020 early voting. 

“Georgia voters came out in near presidential-level numbers,” Raffensperger said in the release. “County election directors handled that demand with the utmost professionalism. They navigated a whole host of challenges and executed seamlessly. They deserve our highest praise.”

The WSJ Editorial Board said the Georgia secretary of state reported 3,957,880 votes by the end of Election Day on Nov. 8, a “historic” record of Election day votes. The Editorial Board compares the record voting numbers to Georgia’s voting law from 2021, which Biden called “Jim Crow 2.0” and claimed the law would accomplish “two insidious things: Voter suppression and election subversion.” 

The Editorial Board writes Biden said, “the new law made it harder to vote by mail or drop box, with the clear goal of ‘longer lines at the polls.’ He [Biden] also warned of ‘threats’ and intimidation against election officials, and sowed doubt about future election outcomes, since the law made voting about ‘who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all.’”

Because of the backlash to Georgia’s new voting law, Delta and Coca-Cola issued statements calling the law “unacceptable,” according to Time. The MLB even decided to remove the All-Star Game from Atlanta because of the law. Georgia’s new election voting law, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in March of last year, limited the amount of ballot drop boxes, strengthened voter ID requirements, banned non-poll workers from giving food to people waiting in line to vote, adjusted the runoff election to be less than a month after Election Day and banned ballots cast after the polls closed.

“What the law really did is increase electoral integrity and voting options, expanding early-voting throughout Georgia, formalized the use of drop boxes (not allowed prior to 2020), left in place no-excuse absentee voting and ended subjective signature matching—to minimize the number of rejected absentee ballots,” the Editorial Board said. “The Atlanta Journal Constitution said the law actually made voting easier: 'Voters found out Tuesday that it’s possible to have both high turnout and short lines,'” and that no one had encountered threats or intimidation, the Editorial Board writes.

Following the record voting turnout, the Editorial Board says “Mr. Biden and his ‘Jim Crow’ jeerers owe them an apology.”

Kemp, who recently won reelection, defeating Stacey Abrams, responded to Biden’s criticism of the Election Integrity Law of 2021 after signing the bill into law in March of 2021. 

“It is obvious that neither Pres. Biden nor his handlers have actually read SB 202, which I signed into law yesterday. This bill expands voting access, streamlines vote-counting procedures and ensures election integrity. There is nothing ‘Jim Crow’ about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot – every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in-person,” Kemp said. “President Biden, the left and the national media are determined to destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box. As secretary of state, I consistently led the fight to protect Georgia elections against power-hungry, partisan activists. As governor, I won’t back down from keeping Georgia elections secure, accessible and fair.”

According to Georgia voting records as of Sunday, black voters were the second largest demographic to vote. Approximately 741,361 votes were cast by “black, non-hispanic voters.” On Oct. 28, Fox News reported Georgia early voting was reading record levels.  

"I guess we can't be surprised at the White House press secretary sticking with the same Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden line that voter suppression and record turnout can somehow go hand in hand," a top election official in Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, told Fox News. "You really can't have this systemic voter suppression and record turnout at the same time, especially when we've looked at this turnout being across all demographics. Right now, our largest county in the state, Fulton, which has a huge African American voting base, is making about 13% of the vote when they make up 10% of the overall population. If we're trying to suppress the vote, we're doing a really terrible job of it in the state."