On Friday President Joe Biden called “Jim Crow in the 21st century” and “a horror” the law signed in Georgia on a massive election bill, saying the Department of Justice takes “a look.”
Requests that the White House could do anything to protect Georgia’s voting rights, Biden said to Delaware tarmac reporters, “We are working on that at this moment. At this point, we don’t know exactly what we can do. The Department of Justice is also taking a look.”
Earlier Friday, a Justice Speaker told CNN that the agency had “consciousness of the legislation,” but had no more comment.
Biden called on Congress, in a statement issued earlier Friday, to adopt voting rights laws that contravene restrictions which Republicans try to impose across the nation, at the national level.
Biden stated in a statement released by the White House, referring to the 2020 election, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly three decades. “Reported after the counting and courts affairs after a court case reaffirmed the integrity and result of a clearly free, fair and secure democratic process.
Following Biden’s victory in Georgia, the state is the first to introduce new voting limits, but the measure, which Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Thursday evening, is part of a nationwide Republican push to limit access to the ballot box after the 2020 election saw record turnout.
Last fall, Biden narrowly won Georgia, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1992. The election results in the swing state were unsuccessfully challenged by then-President Donald Trump, whose lies regarding voter fraud led to legislation like Georgia’s, which he praised in a statement Friday.
But Biden has minced no words as to whether he thinks the provisions are racially motivated.
“This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end,” Biden said in the statement, noting how the restrictions disproportionately target Black voters, who proved crucial to recent Democratic victories in Georgia.
Georgia’s new legislation requires new voter identification for absentee ballots, restricts the use of ballot drop boxes, makes it illegal to approach voters in line and offer them food or water, and gives state officials greater control over local elections.
“Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said.
The President told reporters outside the White House shortly after the statement was released that the Georgia law was “an atrocity.”
“If you want any indication that it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency — they passed a law saying you can’t provide water for people standing in line while they’re waiting to vote,” Biden said before boarding Marine One.
The President told reporters outside the White House shortly after the statement was released that the Georgia law was “an atrocity.”
Before boarding Marine One, Biden said, “If you want any hint that it has nothing to do with justice, nothing to do with decency, they passed a law saying you can’t have water for people standing in line while they’re waiting to vote.”
Georgia Republicans have responded angrily to Biden’s evaluation of the new legislation.
Georgia Republicans have responded angrily to Biden’s evaluation of the new legislation.
“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 on Friday. When it comes to the new rule, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who defied Trump’s pleas in a phone call to find votes to reverse Biden’s win, also said that “the cries of ‘voter fraud’ from those on the left ring hollow.”
Activists for voting rights, on the other hand, argue that the legislation discriminates against Black voters in many respects.
Black voters, for example, are more likely to vote remotely and have less of the identification needed by law to cast an absentee ballot than other voters. Voting rights advocates contend that the law’s provision making it a crime to approach voters in line with food or water would disproportionately impact communities of color, where the average wait time to cast a ballot in last year’s June primary was longer than in predominantly White communities.
The newly-signed bill in Georgia, according to advocates, highlights the need for federal legislation to establish a national framework for voting laws.
