The White House on Tuesday argued that high turnout and voter suppression can occur simultaneously, defending President Joe Biden’s criticism of Georgia’s election law.
When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Georgia’s record early voting turnout, a state president, Joe Biden, claimed he had a “Jim Crow-style” voting system.
“High turnout and voter suppression can happen simultaneously,” she said at her news conference.
She pointed out that President Biden was referring to a series of election laws passed after Donald Trump’s false claim that he was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election and a victim of voter fraud.
Republican-controlled states enacted stricter voting measures after this election. Many states had expanded postal and postal voting in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.
In 2022, at least seven states have enacted 10 laws that make voting difficult—of which five laws in five states are in effect for the midterms, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“The President has made it very clear that, based on The Big Lie, there have been a variety of anti-voter policies for some states that challenge Americans’ fundamental right to vote,” Jean-Pierre said. “It goes against our most basic values.”
“Of course, high turnout and voter suppression can happen simultaneously,” she added. “You don’t have to come by yourself. It can happen simultaneously.’
She declined to go into further detail, citing the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in workplace politics.
When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Georgia’s record early voting turnout, a state President Joe Biden claimed he had a “Jim Crow” style electoral law: “High turnout and voter suppression can happen at the same time “, she said
Citizens cast their ballots for the November midterm elections this week at early polling stations in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia
In March 2021, Biden called Georgia’s newly enacted election law “Jim Crow in the 21st century” and “an atrocity.”
Biden won Georgia in 2020 and Trump is under investigation in the state over allegations that he and his allies pressured state officials to overturn the presidential contest results.
Georgia’s new law imposes new voter identification requirements for postal voting, restricts the use of ballot boxes, makes it a crime to approach voters for food and water, and gives state officials more power over local elections.
It applies to the November 8 elections that will determine control of Congress. The state will also elect a new governor that day.
As of Sunday, about 838,000 Georgians had cast their ballots, most of them in person at primary polling locations, with the rest voting by mail.
That’s almost 60% more than the total number of early ballots cast at this point in 2018, the last midterm election.
More than 10% of registered voters in Georgia have already cast ballots, a percentage trailing only Massachusetts and Vermont, where 22% and 16% of voters cast their ballots, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by Professor Michael from the University of Florida McDonald.
California and Florida have each accepted more than 1 million absentee ballots to date. And the statewide numbers are likely to accelerate this week as more states open early in-person polling stations or mail ballots to voters.
“We’re seeing a very robust number of people voting early, so at that point before Election Day we’d have to see a turnout crater to change course, which we’re going to change,” McDonald said.
Georgia enacted a new election law after the 2020 election, President Joe Biden calling it a “Jim Crow-style” law.
Young people pass a voting information sign on the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georgia
Republicans have seized on the Georgia numbers as justification for their 2021 rewrite of the state election law.
They hope to re-elect Governor Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in 2018, and bolster Herschel Walker over Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who won a Senate runoff in January 2021.
Turnout is record-breaking, said Tate Mitchell, a spokesman for the Kemp campaign, “while Stacey Abrams continues to perpetuate the myth of voter suppression.”
Abrams resists this mockery, although she too celebrates the high early turnout.
“More people in the water doesn’t mean there are fewer sharks,” Abrams said Monday.
“It’s wrong to say there’s a link between voter turnout and voter suppression because suppression is about barriers,” Abrams said. “If these barriers are not entirely successful, credit does not go to those who erected the barriers. Credit goes to those voters who found a way to break, break, and break down these barriers.’
The surge in early turnout coincides with Abrams encouraging her supporters to vote in person rather than using absentee ballots. She heavily promoted the Mail-ins in their loss to Kemp four years ago — as did Democrats elsewhere to their advantage during the 2020 pandemic election.
However, Georgia’s 2021 Election Law added identification requirements to mail-in voting and severely limited the number of Dropboxes used during the 2020 cycle in urban districts that greatly benefit Democrats.
The law also made it easier for anyone to challenge an individual voter’s eligibility to vote and reduced opportunities to cast a provisional vote if a voter turned up at the wrong polling station on election day.
Republicans are hoping for Governor Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in 2018, to be reelected. Abrams challenges him again this year
According to the Abrams campaign, more than 90,000 voters had their eligibility challenged, mostly by conservative groups, although a large proportion of those challenges were dismissed.
Kemp defeated Abrams four years ago by around 55,000 votes. President Biden won the 2020 Georgia electoral vote by about 11,500 votes, and Warnock won his Senate runoff by about 95,000 votes.
In light of the changes to the election law, Democrats are urging supporters to vote as soon as possible during the early in-person voting window, which began Oct. 17 and lasts until Nov. 4, four days before Election Day.
The idea is that if committed Democrats vote early, the party will be able to shift its focus to others and reduce crowds in the final week of early voting.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams campaign manager, said Monday that “that big turnout in the first week was a key part of our strategy,” and the campaign doesn’t think the vote will slow down.
Since beginning her first run for governor four years ago, Abrams’ strategy has been to expand the electorate by sporadically persuading voters, particularly among younger generations and non-whites of all ages. She is black, Kemp is white.
According to the analysis of the campaign, according to Groh-Wargo, 16% of the pre-voters, including voting by post and voting in person, did not vote in Georgia in 2018. She also said about 55,000 of the early in 2020 didn’t vote when the Democrats won.
Those trends, she said, suggest the strategy is working, at least in the early days of early voting. But Kemp has led in nearly every public poll, and his campaign continues to seek to go beyond Republican partisans to win independents and some black voters.
“We are confident that Governor Kemp’s track record and vision for the future will continue to win voters from across the Peach State,” Mitchell said.
The Abrams campaign has so far touted high black turnout, with about 35.5% of the preliminary votes coming from black voters. In 2020, when Biden won, that was 33% by a week of pre-voting. In 2018, when Abrams lost, it was 31%.
Groh-Wargo also highlighted black men and said analysis of the campaign showed about 97,000 black men had already voted; that was about 45,000 at this point during Abrams’ loss attempt. Abrams, who would become the first black woman governor in the United States, has focused more openly on reaching out to black men in her second campaign.
The Georgia electorate has not yet reflected an increase in female voter turnout, although Democrats insist the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Roe v. Wade’s 1973 legalization of abortion will affect women nationwide.
The data shows that the pre-vote so far is 54.5% female, which is about the average for the Georgia general election. However, it is worth noting that 59% of mail-in ballot applications are female and most of them have not yet been returned. So the electorate could still be more female than usual.