Make voting harder

The Georgia law is part of an ongoing effort by the Republican Party to make voting more difficult, mostly because Republicans believe they win when turnout is low.  There is no accurate way to describe this effort other than anti-democratic.  The Republican Party’s justification is “election integrity” — that is, stopping voter fraud. But voter fraud is exceedingly rare. There is no reason to believe it has determined the outcome of a single U.S. election in decades. If anything, the most high-profile recent examples of fraud have tended to involve Republican voters. Yet former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly and falsely claimed otherwise.  In truth, the spate of “election integrity” laws over the past decade are mostly a response to Barack Obama’s presidential victories. They created a consensus, among both parties, that Democrats benefited from high turnout (which may not be true). Republicans in many states have responded by trying to make voting harder, especially in cities and heavily Black areas — through onerous identification requirements, reduced voting hours, reduced access to early voting and more.  The new Georgia law largely fits this pattern. It is a response by Republican legislators and Gov. Brian Kemp to their party’s close losses there in the 2020 elections. The law reduces hours for absentee voting; increases ID requirements, and limit the distribution of water and food to voters waiting in line.  One provision seems obviously targeted at Atlanta, the Democrats’ most important source of votes: a new limit on absentee-ballot drop boxes. It is likely to reduce the number of drop boxes in metropolitan Atlanta to fewer than 25, from 94 last year. “There is no rational motivation for the passage of its new election law other than demonstrating fealty to the false claims elevated by Trump,” The Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote. Perry Bacon Jr. of FiveThirtyEight put it this way: “The enactment of this law in that state is a particularly alarming sign that the Republican Party’s attacks on democratic norms and values are continuing and in some ways accelerating.”  Sadly, this approach goes hand-in-hand with today’s Republican Party.  The selection of an incompetent like Donald Trump as a party leader coupled with the efforts of groups like the Koch Brothers focused solely on reducing income tax reduction has failed to offer a single solution to the major problems facing the country.  Political obstruction will not attract voters and an actual platform designed to make the Democratic President a failure offers nothing that would earn the support of a voter.  The only alternative left for Republicans is efforts to keep people from voting.  If the courts uphold these restrictive measures it will be a sad day for democracy.