In the Georgia Capitol, Republican legislators have filed a bill that calls for massive new voting changes that will make it more difficult to cast ballots. In the last election, Georgians voted for Joe Biden and sent to Democrats to the Senate. Republicans would never say it out loud, but they don’t want that to happen again. Georgia Public Broadcasting reports that a new bill was introduced, just an hour before its first hearing, that would require all counties to hold early voting from 9am to 5pm.
It would allow counties to extend hours to 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., but would prohibit counties from holding early voting any other days — including Sunday voting popular in larger metro counties and a high turnout day for Black voters that hold “souls to the polls” events.
There is also a new photo-id requirement for absentee ballots, and it shrinks the time voters can ask to vote absentee. Georgia Public Broadcasting adds:
Many of the changes in the bill would predominantly affect larger, minority-heavy Democratic strongholds of the state, constituencies that helped Joe Biden narrowly defeat Donald Trump in November and flipped both U.S. Senate seats in January. In recent months, many Republicans at the local, state and federal level have pushed false claims of election fraud and lawmakers in Georgia have vowed to change laws in response.
The bill would also restrict the location of voting drop boxes and limits the use of the drop boxes to only the same times and locations where early voting takes place. In other words, no late night or early morning drop offs.
