President Joe Biden released a statement on the Georgia election bill Friday in which he called the bill “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
“More Americans voted in the 2020 elections than any election in our nation’s history,” the statement began. “In Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate seats in January.” (RELATED: ‘Jim Crow 2.0’: Critics Compare Georgia’s Voting Integrity Bill To Racial Segregation)
NEW: President Biden releases a statement on Georgia’s election reform bill:
“This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.” pic.twitter.com/7gNLi60o1U
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 26, 2021
Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law Thursday night after it passed in both houses of the Georgia legislature. It expanded early voting prior to general elections, including “two Saturday voting days and two optional Sunday voting days” and voter ID requirements for in-person and absentee ballots.
“Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process,” Biden said. “Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote.”
“This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” the president continued.
He slammed the Georgia election bill for ending voting hours earlier, adding “rigid restrictions” on absentee ballots, and making “it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line.” Biden also claimed that Republicans created long lines to vote by reducing the number of polling locations in Georgia. (RELATED: Schumer Accused Georgia Republicans Of Eliminating Sunday Voting. There’s More To The Story)
“This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” Biden said. “It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.”
The president urged Congress to pass sweeping election reform bill H.R. 1 — also known as the For The People Act — and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
“If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide,” he added. “Let the people vote.”
Georgia Republicans defended the bill as needed to restore confidence in election results, as has been previously reported.
“There were many alarming issues with how the election was handled, and those problems, understandably, led to a crisis of confidence in the ballot box here in Georgia,” Kemp said at the signing ceremony.