Georgia Republicans are at it again
Democracy is fragile and requires hard work and vigilance. Specifically, we can’t take our right to vote for granted. We need to rid ourselves of the racism-based Electoral College and adopt a true one-person, one-vote system for our national elections. Our vote is our voice, and if our votes didn’t matter, Republicans wouldn’t try so hard to disenfranchise those of us who are disinclined to vote for GOP candidates.
This past election cycle, Georgia got a lot of things right at the state level. Georgia helped send President Biden to the White House, and it gave us Senators Ossoff and Warnock. On the district level, Georgia didn’t always do so well – think Marjorie Taylor Greene in GA-14. As Georgia gets bluer, Republicans are becoming alarmed at their hazy prospects for future elections. Republicans know they can’t win elections without suppressing non-GOP votes and imposing other voting obstacles. Whiteness, the de facto GOP raison d’être, isn’t sufficient to win consistently, and the party refuses to remedy that. What Georgia Republicans have instead chosen to do is attempt to implement draconian disenfranchisement measures.
Per Marc Elias, an attorney at Democracy Docket, some of the vote-stifling measures Georgia Republicans hope to implement include getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting, requiring photo identification for mail-in ballots, banning ballot drop boxes, requiring mail ballots to be notarized (in effect a poll tax since notarizations cost money), and even prohibiting giving sustenance or a place to sit to voters waiting in line. The GOP’s losses in November 2020 have served to motivate Republicans to erect evermore voting hindrances. We cannot let up now, and we must never take for granted the power of our vote. We won’t wring our hands and fret; we’ll fight voter suppression every step of the way.
