Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s recent election reforms could be great news, not just for voters concerned about the possible voter fraud in the last election, but for Donald Trump in particular.
A mostly red state with a Republican governor, Georgia has nevertheless been a critical battleground for several of the past elections and was the flashpoint for some of the voter fraud claims in the 2020 election.
While Yahoo’s story on the legislation claimed the stolen election theories were “debunked,” nevertheless there have been enough credible accusations of voter fraud elsewhere in the country that made this bill quite necessary.
Signed into law by Kemp on Tuesday, the new law states that death, evidence of voting in another jurisdiction, a tax exemption indicating the voter lived somewhere else and a nonresidential address can now be probable causes for removing a voter from the rolls.
Moreover, the bill sets hard deadlines for counting absentee ballots, will eliminate QR codes on ballots beginning in 2026 and decreed that challenges to the voter rolls can be made as soon as 45 days before the election.
Most significantly, however, the bill removed the Georgia secretary of state from the State Election Board, the Washington Examiner reported.
Why was that so significant?
It was the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who made the election in Georgia such an unmitigated disaster back in 2020.
It was thanks to Raffensperger that the results of the 2020 election took so long to come in, with several ballots, mostly in Fulton County, found to have been scanned twice.
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To his credit, the secretary of state has been pretty gracious about being removed from the board.
The Republican even praised the new law, saying that “we congratulate Gov. Kemp and the General Assembly on the passage of the additional election integrity measures contained in this bill.”
Of course, many liberals in the state weren’t nearly as thrilled.
Among those was Stacey Abrams, best known for failing to become governor of Georgia. She called the new law a “voter suppression bill that emboldens right-wing activists in their efforts to kick Black and brown voters off the rolls.”
“Gov. Kemp returns to his suppression roots with the signing of #SB189: an escalation of his consistent assault on voting rights,” Abrams — who lost to Kemp in the 2018 and 2022 elections — said in a social media post on Wednesday.
“This law is surgically designed to disenfranchise Black and brown voters & seniors and puts a cruel target on Georgia’s homeless population,” she said.
Gov. Kemp returns to his suppression roots with the signing of #SB189: an escalation of his consistent assault on voting rights. This law is surgically designed to disenfranchise Black and brown voters & seniors and puts a cruel target on Georgia’s homeless population.
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) May 8, 2024
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue the state on a similar basis.
“SB 189 is a step back for voters’ rights and voting access in the state of Georgia,” Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia said in a statement. “Most importantly, this bill will require already overburdened election workers to spend time processing unnecessary voter challenges.
“As always, elected state officials should work to make voting easier and not more difficult for Georgia citizens. We are committed to protecting Georgia voters and will see the governor in court.”
The governor has allowed SB 189 to become law, imposing more barriers for Georgia voters and elections administrators. https://t.co/BHxg8OG6yK pic.twitter.com/FzuVhmUvEy
— ACLU of Georgia (@ACLUofGA) May 7, 2024
The reality, however, was that this would only lead to a cleaner, more fair election in the state.
Liberals, like those writing for The American Prospect, might castigate the bill as “voter suppression” designed to help “election deniers” (as if there have never been any “election deniers” in the Democrat Party).
But, in truth, it would help to greatly mitigate voter fraud or just pure sloppiness.
Kemp has seemed to have finally woken up to the possible voter fraud occurring in his state.
Not only that, but now he is taking action to actively try and stop it.
This move was huge, not just for the average voter, but for Trump as well.
Without the issues that plagued the last election in Georgia — where he lost by 11,779 votes — the presumptive GOP nominee has a better chance of winning the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes and, possibly, the presidency.
Would that more governors emulated Kemp and reformed their election processes.
