Biden attacks new Georgia voting law
Bill restricts drop boxes, mail ballots
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden issued a full-throated attack Friday on a new Georgia law that dramatically constrains voting access in the Peach State, calling it “Jim Crow in the 21st century” and putting his voice behind efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Congress.
Mr. Biden’s criticism of Georgia’s SB 202, signed into law Thursday, came after similarly vehement comments from the president at his first news conference this week, in which he denounced efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to restrict access to voting.
“Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over,” he said. “It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters.”
Like other critics, Mr. Biden took particular aim at a provision that forbids people from providing food or drinks, including water, to voters waiting in line at the polls — arguing that it was Republicans themselves who created those lines by cutting the number of polling sites, especially in majority Black communities.
Some civil rights activists argued that Mr. Biden is not doing enough to ensure the passage of a federal voting protection law.
“I think he has to do more and do everything within his power,” said Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda.
SB 202 is one of the first comprehensive state bills to significantly restrict voting access in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when former President Donald Trump repeatedly and baselessly attacked the integrity of state elections systems, particularly in Georgia.
The new Georgia law has several components: It allows state lawmakers to initiate takeovers of local election boards while stripping power from the secretary of state. It institutes new ID requirements for mail ballots and curtails the use of drop boxes.