The GOP’s campaign to restrict voting

Ari Berman

After a record turnout in the 2020 election, Republican-controlled states “are taking their voter-suppression efforts to new extremes,” said Ari Berman. Georgia, which gave Joe Biden a narrow victory and elected two Democratic senators, “is ground zero” for new voting restrictions. The state legislature is promoting bills to end no-excuse absentee balloting, limiting such ballots to people over 65 and requiring voters to get the signature of a witness and attach a copy of a photo ID. Another bill would cut back on Sunday voting, in an obvious attempt to limit black turnout through the “Souls to the Polls” voting drives held by black churches. Until this year, Georgia Republicans supported and expanded mail-in balloting, because it helped older and rural voters. But during the pandemic, many Democrats used mail-in ballots, leading to Donald Trump’s Big Lie about widespread fraud. (Every ballot in Georgia was recounted by hand.) At latest count, Republicans have introduced 253 bills to restrict voting access in 43 states, justifying these anti-democratic restrictions by saying their supporters don’t “trust” elections. If Democrats do not enact a proposed federal voting-rights bill to safeguard access to the ballot, “the consequences for democracy” will be dire.