It Bears Repeating -- The Worst Part Of The Georgia Voter Suppression Law

 

 

We continue to hear media (and Democrats!) frame the Georgia voter suppression bill in a manner that plays into Republican hands.  The number one focus of attention has been the prohibition of water and food for people in line to vote, with changes in absentee voting and other restrictions also highlighted. These are important elements of the Georgia law that certainly suppress voting by making it more difficult and onerous, and should be eliminated.

But, as we've said before, even if you fix all of the voter suppression elements, the Republicans have a fail-safe provision allowing them to overturn the results of an election (just as the former guy pressured the Georgia Secretary of State, among others, to do).  It's the element most missing in discussions of the bill -- a "somewhat overlooked provision," to say the least:

Thanks to a somewhat overlooked provision in Georgia’s new restrictive voting law and similar measures being pushed in more than a half-dozen other GOP-controlled legislatures, the skids are becoming better greased for Trump-style election tampering in the future. These attempts to subvert the will of voters must be stopped.  [snip]

The law doesn’t just change who picks the chair. Now, the majority of the board’s members will be legislative appointees, and the board gains ominous new power: the ability to remove and replace election officials administering the vote at the level where the real elections work happens — the county level.  [snip]

“Republicans are brazenly trying to seize local and state election authority in an unprecedented power grab,” says voting rights leader Stacey Abrams, former Democratic leader in the Georgia State House. The new law, she says, is “intended to alter election outcomes and remove state and county election officials who refuse to put party above the people … Had their grand plan been law in 2020, the numerous attempts by state legislatures to overturn the will of the voters would have succeeded.”

To repeat, lest anyone think this isn't a critical part of Republican election strategy, similar measures to strip power from local officials and overturn elections are underway or under consideration in seven other states (including swing states like Arizona and North Carolina).  Expect the list to grow.

Republicans in state legislatures across the country are trying to achieve what they can't at the ballot box: "rigging" and "stealing" national and state elections whose outcomes they don't like. This is not only an existential threat to the only pro- democracy major party we have, but to our survival as a democratic republic.  We need to make sure the For the People Act (H.R. 1/ S.1) passes, regardless of Republican obstruction.  We also need to fight these anti- democracy bills as they arise in every state legislature, and marshal every legal and political resource and ally we can to defeat these fascists now, because otherwise we won't get a second chance.

The Worst Part Of The Georgia Jim Crow Law

Since it continues to get no attention in the media (or, frankly, from national Democrats), it bears repeating what Ari Berman pointed out as perhaps the worst aspect of the Georgia voter suppression law (spoiler alert: it's election nullification).  This time, let's let Zach Beauchamp amplify it:

Under current law, key issues in election management — including decisions on disqualifying ballots and voter eligibility — are made by county boards of election. The new law allows the State Board of Elections to determine that these county boards are performing poorly, replacing the entire board with an administrator chosen at the state level.

At the same time, the bill enhances the General Assembly’s control over the state board.

It removes Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who famously stood up to Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results in Georgia, from his role as both chair and voting member of the board. The new chair would be appointed by the legislature, which already appoints two members of the five-person board — meaning that a full majority of the board will now be appointed by the Republican-dominated body.

To simplify: The state board, which now will be fully controlled by the Republican legislative majority, is unilaterally empowered to take over (among other things) the process of disqualifying ballots across the state. Given that Georgia Republicans have helped promote false allegations of voter fraud, it’s easy to see why handing them so much power over local election authorities is so worrying. 

So, even if all the voter suppression tactics fail, Republicans can still override election results through the Republican- dominated state board of elections.

Whether this particular provision, much less the law in general, survives court challenges remains to be seen.  The Justice Department under Merrick Garland has been tasked with looking at the Georgia law, presumably including this election nullification gambit (which is being copied in other Republican- run states with the same goal of disenfranchising Democratic -- Black and Hispanic -- voters).  Through litigation or legislation or both, this racist, anti- democratic crap needs to be stopped.

(Image: Merika-Imgflip)

QOTD -- Election Nullification, Georgia Style

"... [I]f this law had been in place, Donald Trump absolutely might have succeeded in overturning the election in Georgia because his biggest Republican critic in Georgia was the secretary of state, (Brad Raffensperger)…. If the Republican legislature in Georgia had wanted to overturn the will of the voters, they could have done that through control of the State Board of Elections and through leaning on county board of elections. And this is why they have made this such a big part of the bill. [snip]

"A lot of things got the headlines, right, Rachel? Not being able to give people food and water, trying to cut back on early voting — those kinds of things got the headlines. But I think the real purpose here was to intensify control over how every aspect of elections are run in Georgia. So, when there are close elections in the future — which they know there will be — they will have unprecedented power to challenge the election results and to decline to certify them if they don't like who the winner is." -- journalist Ari Berman on "The Rachel Maddow Show" Thursday, commenting on a less- noted provision in the recently- signed Georgia voter suppression law paving the way for the Republican state legislature to change election results through control of the board of elections.  It should be noted other Republican- controlled states are proposing similar provisions. (our emphasis)

(Photo:  Georgia Gov. Brian "KK" Kemp signs voter suppression law, witnessed by six white Republicans and a portrait of a plantation.  Their white sheets must be in the laundry.)