‘Cologne on Jim Crow’ posted: Georgia’s GOP lawmakers seek new voting restrictions

‘Cologne on Jim Crow’ posted: Georgia’s GOP lawmakers seek new voting restrictions

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Important performances are coming this week. The GOP-controlled General Assembly of the state has only five legislative working days left on its calendar before it adjourned on March 31. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate say they plan to finalize the amendments to the election bills in the coming days.

A bill on the omnibus that an important House committee is expected to act on Monday will set identification requirements for the absence of votes, restrict the use of ballot boxes and disqualify most preliminary ballot papers cast outside voters’ homes. It would also make it an offense to provide food or soft drinks to voters while waiting in line.

Specific stakeholders for voting rights activists in the state: measures that deprive the elected secretary of state of authority and give civil servants broad rights, including the ability to replace local election officials.

“We’re facing an emergency,” Hillary Holley, organizing director of Fair Fight Action, told CNN.

Despite recent changes to the package to retain more early votes over the weekend, “this bill remains nothing more than voter oppression,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund. “The recent changes are nothing more than giving Jim Crow a little makeup and cologne.”

His group is planning a rally Monday in Georgia Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Atlanta to put businesses under pressure to resist the package, part of a planned week of action.

High risk

Georgia, a battlefield state, is at the forefront of efforts in Republican-controlled legislatures across the country to set tough, new restrictions on voting. The proposed voting limits in Georgia come before the government signals and U.S. Senate contests next year.

A February version of the Liberal Brennan Center for Justice monitors bills that would restrict votes in 43 states. More states have since joined the list, with new bills recently landing in North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Republican lawmakers in the state have used their efforts to thwart a system alleged by fraud. A preamble to the House Bill states that it is designed “to address the lack of voter confidence in the electoral system on all sides of the political spectrum” and to promote ‘uniformity in voting’.

Watch these statements as GOP makes it harder to vote
Former President Donald Trump and his allies have made false allegations that he lost the election due to fraud. There is no evidence of widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the election in Georgia or elsewhere. President Joe Biden’s victory of nearly 12,000 votes in the state was reaffirmed in three separate counts.

Voting rights activists say the measures being considered will restrict access to the ballot for large sections of Georgia’s increasingly diverse population.

Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said ID requirements for obtaining absentee ballots would harm older voters, those on low incomes, and college students because they are all less likely to have driver’s licenses or other forms of identification required. such as passports or a state or federal photo identification card.

Georgia currently uses signatures in absentia, which according to Republican lawmakers is an unreliable way to verify voters’ identities. According to an audit in Cobb County, Georgia, after the general election in November last year, according to the Foreign Secretary’s office, no fraudulent ballots with a 99% confidence threshold were found.

According to the Georgia House Bill, voters must provide their driver’s license numbers or ID numbers and other identifying information, such as their date of birth, on the ballot papers.

Georgia’s Republicans ‘say there should be a vote for the 1% and … for the privileged,’ Dennis told CNN.

Last minute changes

In recent days, lawmakers in Georgia have relied on a provision that critics say would have targeted black voters unfairly. Republicans now say they plan to retain early voting on Sunday as part of the package for the omnibus vote the House Committee will take this week. The change under discussion would specifically allow Georgians to vote on two Sundays during the early voting period of the state. In a previous bill, an attempt was made to allow only one optional day of Sunday to be voted on.

Voting rights activists have criticized the restriction as an attack on ‘Souls to the Polls’ – programs that help promote the rise of black churchgoers, a key democratic constituency. And according to a CNN analysis of the voting patterns in the November general election, the measure was eliminated days when an excessive number of black voters cast their ballots.
Republican Rep. Barry Fleming, the architect of the voting restrictions moving through the Georgia House, also indicated that attempts to revoke the apology of absentees without apology are now dead. His package does not contain the repeal that the Senate of Georgia accepted earlier this month. A record 1.3 million Georgians voted by post during the general election in November last year.
Why the consequences of Republican efforts to curb the vote are not clear

Fleming’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fleming said at a meeting last month that the bills were intended to address the ‘controversy’ surrounding recent elections.

“If you have followed all the issues of the elections in Georgia, you know that there has been controversy over our electoral system. And I believe that the purpose of our process here should be to restore the confidence of our public in our electoral system. ‘Fleming said on February 18 when his committee began its work.

Republican Senator Max Burns, Georgia, who chairs the Senate bill, has drafted a companion bill, the text of which was announced Friday afternoon. His committee plans to take it up Monday with a vote that would already take place Tuesday, Burns told CNN.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Burns said his version “will address some of the issues and challenges we face.” “He did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend.

New powers

Both measures give state legislators more authority over elections.

A provision in the House Bill encourages the elected Secretary of State to chair the State Electoral Council. The General Assembly would elect the new chairman and give legislators three out of five board appointments.

The current Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, angered the former president last year when he refuted Trump’s false allegations that widespread voter fraud in the state contributed to his defeat. (Trump’s request to Raffensperger to “find” votes is now the subject of an investigation into Fulton County, Georgia.)

The House package would also give the Legal Election Council the right to suspend both local election supervisors and local election councils and appoint a new official to act as interim supervisor.

Suffrage activists say this is very important to the tradition of local government and could lead to a scenario in which government officials sneak in to prevent a province from confirming its election results.

In his attempt to overturn his loss, Trump targeted not only election officials but also members of an obscure election council in Wayne County, Michigan, who are accused of confirming Biden’s victory in the Detroit area.

“Imagine they had the power in the last election,” Albright said of the new government considering the package in Georgia. “This is the provision that anyone can trump in this bill.”

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