Georgia House Approves New Restrictions As GOP War On Voting Rights Intensifies – By Travis Waldron (Huffpost) / Mar 2 2021
Since Trump’s loss, Republicans “have made opposing voting rights the central tenet of their party,” one lawyer said.
The Georgia House of Representatives on Monday approved a sweeping election overhaul bill that would place new voter ID requirements on absentee ballots and limit weekend voting ― becoming the latest Republican-controlled state legislative chamber to place additional restrictions on voting in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s loss in November.
Georgia and Arizona, two states where President Joe Biden scored the first victory for a Democratic presidential candidate in three decades last year, have emerged as the epicenters of the GOP’s attempts to curtail voting rights in 2021. Arguing that expanded absentee and early voting programs sowed chaos and confusion during an unprecedented pandemic, Republicans in both states have proposed and begun passing restrictions and election reforms that would make it harder for many voters ― especially Black and Latino voters ― to cast ballots in the future.
The voter ID provision, voting rights advocates argue, would add another onerous requirement to a process that is already secure and protected by more reliable and equitable forms of verification. And the effort to limit weekend voting in Georgia, voting groups argue, is nothing more than a direct attempt to combat “souls to the polls” drives, where predominantly Black churches mobilize voters to go to the polls after Sunday services. In states like Arizona or Georgia, where Biden and Democratic Senate candidates won narrow victories, even small amounts of voter suppression could be enough to swing elections.
