WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th March, 2021) ASHINGTON, March 10 (Sputnik), Barrington M. Salmon - Nicole Henderson and her colleagues at the New Georgia Project did not have very long to celebrate the fruits of their labor: an impressive ground game that helped turn Georgia "blue" in November 2020, and two stunning electoral victories in US senate runoffs that gave control of the chamber to Democrats.
Less than two weeks after Democratic candidates Rafael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their Senate seats on January 5, Republicans in the Georgia legislature set in motion voter suppression efforts, Henderson said.
"As you can imagine, we're extremely frustrated, upset by their attempt to roll back the ability of Georgians to vote," Henderson, the organization's Director of Communications, told Sputnik. "What we see in this legislature in Georgia and the rest of the country is a direct result of the other side losing. This will hurt voters on both sides, including Black voters. We do not need people standing in line, not being able to vote safely... we need drop boxes and mail-in ballots being available in the midst of the pandemic."
US activists and rights groups have warned that the Georgia Republicans are hoping to use voting restrictions to reverse the Democratic gains.
REPUBLICAN OFFENSIVE: SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM
On Monday, the state of Georgia's Republican-majority senate passed legislation to restrict absentee ballots as protesters rallied outside the Capitol building in Atlanta. The bill, SB 241, would end the right to vote by mail without having to provide an excuse.
Republican lawmakers across the country, so far this year, have already pushed more than 250 bills to restrict voting in 43 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
The onslaught is rooted in a 2013 US Supreme Court decision that gutted a landmark voting rights act. The ruling allowed states to change election laws without getting clearance from the US Department of Justice. Within days of the verdict, states and cities enacted a tidal wave of laws that rights groups said discriminated against minorities.
On March 1, Georgia Republicans passed House Bill 531, which would impose limits on voter drop-off boxes along with early voting while adding an ID requirement for absentee ballots. In addition, if anyone hands out food, water or drinks to those standing in line waiting to vote, they could be charged with a misdemeanor.
Former Congressional Assistant Campaign Organizer for Congressman Sanford Bishop, Erica Savage-Wilson, described Republican efforts as a solution in search of a problem and the proposals they are pushing as being "fiscally irresponsible."
"I expected this reaction. Georgia went for Biden by 11,000 votes and Warnock and Ossoff won. These laws are ensuring that people don't maximize their vote," Savage-Wilson, who is also director of outreach for Public Democracy, a political consulting firm, told Sputnik. "Election integrity is a push for Jim Crow-era restrictions, white only voting of poll taxes, literacy and other taxes to participate."
Savage-Wilson said by her count, approximately 47 bills have come out of the Georgia Special Committee on Electoral Integrity, formed on January 7 after Warnock and Ossoff won their elections. She said she considers the fight for voting rights to be a life-and-death issue. She also said it's very likely that these bills will pass.
The Black community, she added, is being disproportionately impacted by the efforts.
"This isn't a Democratic or Republican state but a voter suppression state," Savage-Wilson said. "We see these tactics popping up in Iowa and elsewhere. The demographics in Georgia have changed but because of voter suppression tactics, it has not been turned over the way it really is."
Eliza Sweren-Becker, who serves as counsel in the Democratic Program at the Brennan Center, said the strategy these legislatures are employing is deeply concerning.
"What we saw in November 2020 and in Georgia is that Americans are resilient. They do not like when politicians take away their ability to vote," she told Sputnik at the beginning of legislative sessions nationwide. "We're starting to see a legislative backlash developing. It's a one-two punch to blunt Americans' ability to vote."
The legislative push is just the latest iteration of voter suppression in the state of Georgia, the activists said.
When Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was secretary of state he purged more than 1.4 million primarily Black voters from the rolls between 2012 and 2018. Georgia's 2018 gubernatorial election - which pitted Kemp against House Minority leader Stacey Abrams - was marred by voter suppression tactics. Some voters' ballots were tossed because they were told by poll workers that they had the wrong ID while some were flagged incorrectly as non-citizens.
But 2020 proved to be different from elections before 2018 because of the organization, mobilization and animation of a considerable swathe of new or ignored voters across Georgia energized and registered by Abrams, Fair Fight, the New Georgia Project, ProGeorgia State Table, Georgia STANDUP and other groups.
Their work led to a total turnout of 134 percent, total in-person turnout of 47 percent and a 615 percent increase in absentee ballots.
OPPOSITION MOBILIZES AGAINST GEORGIA BILLS
In order to counter the Republican efforts, the advocates said there are a number of tools that opponents are prepared to use, including putting intense pressure on lawmakers and on corporations to get off the fence and then offer support and pressure on those in Congress to pass H.R. 1 and H.R. 4.
H.R. 1 was the first bill passed by the then-newly Democratically controlled House of Representatives in 2018. Called the "For the People Act," it is a sweeping legislative measure that seeks "to expand Americans' access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants and for other purposes." H.R. 4 "establishes new criteria for determining which states and political subdivisions must obtain preclearance before changes to voting practices in these areas may take effect."
Almost two dozen major corporations are headquartered in Georgia. They include Home Depot, UPS, Delta Airlines, AT&T, The Southern Company and the Coca Cola Company. Other major US companies who have also funded co-sponsors of the Georgia bills to the tune of $7.4 million include Comcast, CVS, Walmart, General Motors and Publix.
Henderson and Savage-Wilson echoed other activists who have castigated these corporations for talking the talk but not walking the walk.
According to Popular Information, after culling through thousands of Georgia campaign finance records filed over the last three years, the Republican lawmakers and officials sponsoring these bills are backed by millions in corporate donations.
Yet the sponsors of these bills are supported by corporations that publicly embrace voting rights. For example, Coca-Cola, through its Sprite brand, ran a series of ads prior to the 2020 election stressing the importance of voting in the Black community. "Sprite is committed to supporting young Black creators & artists and the reasons why they vote," one ad said.
"ATT, for example, has given $99,000 since 2018 to people who have sponsored voter suppression legislation," said Henderson. "They need to speak out that they don't support these lawmakers. Coke and Delta have made statements about racial equality but at this point have remained on the fence."
Savage-Wilson said H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 must get passed because voter suppression is a life-and death issue for African Americans. She said she hopes voter suppression will not be going on in 2022.
"We owe people who were hospitalized, people who were not vested. We owe it to our children and generations to come," she said. "This is a direct attack on Black people. There's a lot that's at stake this year."
Georgia's Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, the chief sponsor of SB 241, told The Washington Post this week that the surge in mail-in ballots increased costs and the burden on local election offices.
