Wrong information about Colorado’s election laws is flying on social media after Major League Baseball decided to move its All-Star Game to Georgia from Georgia.
The league made the decision after the Georgia legislature revised its election laws in a way that, according to many critics, complicates the vote, especially for coloreds and lower-income environments.
According to MLPN, MLB Commission Rob Manfred described the Midsummer Classic move as ‘the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport’. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has repeatedly responded by saying that Colorado’s voter laws are more restrictive than those of Georgia.
The Colorado Sun compared some of the allegations made in recent days with the comparison of voting laws in the two states. Here’s what we found.
Vote before election day and ballot papers by post
Colorado, whose voting system was praised by Democrats and Republicans, has 15 days of early voting compared to 17 in Georgia. But there is much more to the story than two days.
First, Colorado automatically sends a ballot to every active registered voter 22 days before election day in an “all-option” voting system, according to Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick. This means that voters can cast their ballots by mail, by sending their ballots back to a dropbox or by voting in person.
“By treating every voter the same and just sending a ballot to every voter, it’s one of the biggest things that moved the needle,” Fitzpatrick said.
In contrast, voters in Georgia must request a vote for absentees if they do not intend to vote in person. The state’s new voting law has reduced to less than three months from more than six months by more than half of the period during which voters can request a ballot from absentees.
Georgia election officials are also now barred from automatically sending absentee ballot applications to all voters.
The availability of download or download ballot papers also affects the number of people going to physical polling stations.
Nearly 94% of Coloradans voted by mail or dropbox in the 2020 election, while only a third of Georgia voters voted by mail. For numerical comparison, it compares 198,645 Coloradans personally to more than 2.7 million Georgians. This often leads to long queues at polling stations in Georgia – something rarely seen in Colorado.
In other words, giving two hundred thousand voters two days of extra people is a “false equivalent,” says Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser to the Democracy Fund, an impartial foundation that pleads for free, among other things. and fair elections.
Voter ID Laws
Both Colorado and Georgia need some identification to be able to vote. Colorado, however, makes it much easier.
Personal voters in Colorado must show proof of identity to cast their ballots. It could be a traditional state-issued ID or a passport, or they could provide another document to prove their identity and Colorado residency, such as a birth certificate, bank statement, account, or an employee or student ID.
First-time Colorado voters who vote by mail or cast their ballots may need to include a photocopy of some form of identification if they have not registered with an ID.
In Georgia, voters who vote in person must show some form of photo identification.
Under Georgia’s new law, voters must submit an absent ballot paper – also known as a postal ballot – to always submit a copy of an identification form, even though it does not have to be a photo ID.
Other important voting rights differences
Georgia’s new law reduces the number of ballots to one per 100,000 voters in a country, or one per early polling station, whichever is less. For example, if a country has five polling stations but only 300,000 voters, it is only allowed to have three dropboxes.
“It wanders on the side of sub-ministry,” said Patrick, who advises the election team at the Democracy Fund.
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In contrast, Colorado has minimum requirements for the number of drops per country. Depending on the population in the country, there should be one dropbox for every 12,500 to 15,000 voters.
Meanwhile, Colorado allows voters to register on the same day they vote, until election day. Georgia does not.
Georgia’s new law prohibits people from providing ‘any money or gifts, including but not limited to’ food and drink ‘, to anyone standing in line to vote. Colorado has election laws that prohibit people from trying to influence voters’ decisions near polling stations and ballots, but there is no ban on giving people food and drink.
