It’s unclear why Democrats think Georgia’s voting law is Armageddon; it’s not even clear the changes will automatically benefit Republicans. But, if there’s one thing that’s true in today’s politics, it’s that anything the Democrats decide they don’t like is “racist” and/or “a return to Jim Crow.” The new law actually guarantees mobile ballot boxes, increases state oversight over county election officials, expands early voting access, and shortens runoff election timelines.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/polit...ned/index.html
It seems the main gripe Democrats have decided to race bait with is absentee voting, since the law tightens deadlines and replaces signature matching (which Democrats insist is racist) with identification requirements for absentee voting, which can be as simple as confirming the last four digits of your social security number (which apparently is also racist).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...05a_story.html
Detractors lean heavily into Jim Crow themes, but don’t seem to have many specifics, insisting the bill will make it harder for minorities to vote. The inference, then, is that some significant portion of minority voters don’t have IDs, social security numbers, or utility bills, or that they can’t get their own food and water without someone bringing it to them while they stand in line at the polls. That’s obviously not true, so it’s unclear who exactly Democrats are defending by having a meltdown over the new changes. The claim that the law would “criminalize giving people water” has been debunked by fact checkers, but it remains one of the most popular talking points used by people criticizing the legislation.
https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...iveaways-vote/
Of course, there’s no mention of the ways in which the law actually makes voting and voting early easier, either. All US citizens have social security numbers, and you have to confirm the the full, not just the last 4, digits in a variety of common, every day scenarios, from signing up for credit card and bank accounts to taking out any kind of loan or filing taxes. Being able to confirm the last four of your SSN instead of going through signature match requirements would presumably be easier, not harder, but this isn’t the first time Democrats have twisted the truth to construe their perceived electoral advantages as “voting rights.”
Beyond the question of why Democrats don’t think they can win without universal and unrestricted mail in voting and the absence of voter ID, one might wonder what voting is like in other countries. According to a recent report, only 35 of 204 countries allow mail in voting. Far from being a “voting right,” it’s not even common.
Many other democracies have “racist” voter ID laws, and a recent Harvard study in the US found voter ID has “no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation. These results hold through a large number of specifications and cannot be attributed to voters’ reaction against the laws or measured by campaign contributions and self-reported political engagement.”
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55734
The vast majority of Americans support requiring photo ID in order to vote.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/...ly-voting.aspx
Most Americans support mail in voting, but believe that universal absentee voting would increase fraud.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/310586/...-november.aspx
Judging from the last national election, a year in which absentee voting was a matter of personal safety, most people still didn’t plan to vote by mail. Black Democrats were the most likely to prefer in person voting.
Based on these figures, it’s clear why Democrats think they have an electoral stake in expanding absentee voting. What’s unclear is what that has to do with race, especially since the voters Democrats claim to protect prefer in person voting.