Georgia became a top state for early voting turnout during the 2022 midterms, second only to Texas, despite claims by President Joe Biden that the state’s new voting law would lead to “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Over 58% of Georgia’s voters cast their ballots in-person three weeks ahead of election day on Nov. 8, which was second to Texas’s 64%, according to a new report on the 2022 midterms by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, amounting to a 10% increase from 2018’s midterm elections. The increase came after Georgia’s Republican-led legislature passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which mandated voter identification and restricted absentee ballot use, which Democrats had criticized as leading to voter suppression. (RELATED: Georgia’s New Voting Law — Myths And Facts)
“The votes of nearly 5 million Georgians will be up for grabs if that law holds,” said Biden during a speech in Georgia in January of 2022, adding that “Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion … It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact.”
The “Jim Crow 2.0” Georgia voting law decried by Coca-Cola and Delta is now followed by record-breaking voter turnout in that state. It turns out that people of all races know how to carry a driver’s license. Those CEOs owe “stakeholders” an apology for making racist assumptions.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 4, 2022
His remarks were echoed by Vice President Kamala Harris and other top Democrats, with Harris saying “I have heard your outrage about the anti-voter law here and how many voters will likely be kept from voting.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the law would “eliminate early voting on Sunday,” a claim that was rated “Mostly False” by Politifact.
Former Democratic State Rep. Stacey Abrams, who gained national attention for black voter turnout efforts in Georgia, said that “I will do everything in my power to make certain that these new onerous voter suppression laws do not effectively block voters from their right to vote.” Abrams, who was once considered a vice presidential nominee for Biden’s 2020 campaign, lost the state’s 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial races to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Several corporations announced that they would be leaving the state of Georgia in response to the law, with Major League Baseball announcing that it would move its All-Star Game out of the state, while large Georgia-based companies such as Delta Airlines and The Coca-Cola Company criticized the law. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would be monitoring Georgia’s compliance with federal voting rights legislation during the state’s Senate runoff election.
Kemp called the claims by Democrats about the law “disingenuous and completely false” and said that “Democrats and the mainstream media are spreading lies and misinformation” about the law.
Turnout in Georgia during the 2022 election surged to a record high for a midterm election and was the highest among all Southern states that year, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After the election, CNN, The New York Times other corporate media outlets published stories acknowledging the disconnect between claims of “voter suppression” and the facts, with the Associated Press writing that its “effects [were] unclear.”
“Georgia’s election system has been challenged and scrutinized and criticized and passed every test,” said Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in a statement.
Biden, Harris, Schumer, Abrams, Kemp and Raffensberger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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