Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) is on the receiving end of hysterical outrage from Democrats about a common-sense voting reform bill that he recently signed into law. Lawmakers and activists on the Left, including Kemp’s 2018 opponent Stacey Abrams, who has yet to formally concede her loss, deem the bill representative of “voter suppression” and a return to “Jim Crow laws.”
Kemp and Republicans argue that the bill expands voting access, including adding weekend voting options, while also promoting free and fair election practices by ramping up voter identification requirements. The governor said that Democrats’ outrage-driven narrative is not reflective of the bill itself.
“They [Democrats] just want to drive that one narrative regardless of what’s in the bill, because it definitely expands voting access--especially on the weekends. It replaces the arbitrary process of signature matching with a voter ID requirement, which we’ve had in Georgia for in-person voting since the mid-2000s, and so Georgians are used to that. It makes sure that county election officials do continuous tabulation to get every vote counted so that we have timely results,” Kemp said in an interview with Townhall. “I don’t know what the big fuss is about.”
President Joe Biden joined the condemnation of the bill, likened it to “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” He was awarded 4 pinocchios by The Washington Post for blatantly false claims about the contents of the legislation, for which Kemp does not expect any remorse.
“I don’t think he [Biden] will apologize. I think he was probably listening to his handlers or others. And they hadn’t read the bill, they really didn’t understand what was in it,” Kemp said, adding that while Democrats are outraged about common-sense reforms in Georgia, the party is currently pushing HR 1, an “unconstitutional power-grab” over elections at the federal level.
Predominantly driving the outrage from Democrats about the bill signed by Kemp are the voter identification mandates, which are designed to ensure election integrity. Democrats characterize identification requirements as “voter suppression,” but public opinion polling shows that overwhelming majorities of Republican, Democrat, and Independent voters all favor voter identification laws. Kemp pointed out that identification requirements for mail-in voting have been in place for over a decade, and that requiring the same for mail-in voting will actually streamline the process of counting votes.
“Ninety-five to ninety-seven percent of our citizens voted in-person with a photo ID requirement over the last 15-20 years...The vast majority of Georgians are used to doing that, they support it, they know it's very easy to do that. I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Kemp said, arguing that the identification requirement will “speed up the counting process and the administrative process at the county level when they’re actually sending the ballots out." Additionally, he said that photo identification requirements are a more efficient and effective alternative to signature matching for mail-in voting.
The newly-signed voting reform legislation will help restore voter confidence in the electoral system, Kemp hopes, after Republicans saw a major drop in voter turnout in the pair of runoff Senate elections in January.
“Voter confidence has been shaken. There’s polling that shows Republicans and Democrats just want to make sure that we have a secure process that is fair for both sides. That’s how the country was built and we should continue that,” Kemp said, adding that he believes the bill “will restore voter confidence” while addressing “mechanical issues” within the electoral process in 2020.
Democrats are already threatening to take Kemp to court over the common-sense legislation, despite the party’s claim of being committed to voting accessibility and election fairness.
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