Georgia GOP pushes elimination of Sunday voting to suppress black turnout

[babylonsister]

Georgia GOP pushes elimination of Sunday voting to suppress black turnout
The proposal would also shorten voting hours in Atlanta.
Kira Lerner
Mar 16, 2018, 1:56 pm


Georgia Republicans are advancing a bill through the state legislature that would suppress African-American turnout by eliminating Sunday voting and cutting the hours that polls are open in Atlanta.

The bill, SB 363, would force polls in the majority African American city of Atlanta to close an hour earlier — 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. — and would eliminate early voting on the Sunday before Election Day. That Sunday is often a high-turnout day for African American voters because of Souls to the Polls events that encourage people to cast ballots early after attending church.

The proposal passed the state House Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday with the majority Republicans voting in favor and all five Democrats, who have said the legislation is designed to suppress voter turnout, in opposition.

The text of the bill limits voting to just one weekend day before an election, but under current state law, any election with state or federal candidates must allow voting on a Saturday, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Georgia Republicans have opposed Sunday voting since at least 2014, when DeKalb County (home to Atlanta) extended early voting to include the Sunday before Election Day. One polling location that year was at a popular local shopping mall.

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-sunday-voting-cut-9c1c2ffafd18/

[dameatball]

1. We make exceptions for all kinds of voting, so this is a blatently restrictive move

we have exemptions for many segments of society from the I-day voting standard, so why restrict Sunday.


Ooooohhhh....I get it. F em

[Ms. Toad]

2. That paragraph is a bit misleading, without more.

I was all ready to get outraged at shortening the poll hours in a single city, while permitting the rest of the state an extra hour to vote.

But - the question isn't that black and white. Currently, Atlanta citizens have one extra hour to vote. The proposal is to eliminate the difference that already exists, not to create a difference that disfavors African Americans.

(Not questioning their intent - and decreasing Sunday voting is despicable. I'm less clear on returning to closing time equality. But I definitely don't like being mislead into thinking they are trying to create a disparity, rather than resolve an existing one - by burying the existing state voting law halfway down the article.)

[Hortensis]

6. Ms. Toad, lower-rank employees are often forced

to adhere to very strict schedules. The white clerical workers in the front office can arrange some flexibility as needed, and of course salespeople and managers get a great deal. But work schedules have always been a disenfranchising tool.

Before cell phones, the people in the "back" had their two federally mandated 15-minute breaks and one half hour lunch in which to handle personal business such as calling banks and government offices, when their employees were also on their mandated breaks and lunches. Just guess how well that worked for them.

Both changes are undoubtedly, unquestionably intended to suppress minority and low income votes.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Please reread my post. I expressly said that I agreed with the characterization of their intent

What I said was that, as it is framed, the article is misleading.

The bill is described as shortening the voting hours in Atlanta, a heavily African American community, without explaining until halfway through the article that currently voting hours in Atlanta are one hour longer than in the rest of the state.

There is a significant difference between changing the voting hours to make them equal and changing the voting hours to make those in a heavily African American neighborhood shorter than in white communities (which is implied by how the article is framed).

Of course longer hours are better. Of course more weekend hours are better. Of course shortening voting hours and cutting out hours disenfranchises voters with fewer resources (money, non-working time, transportation, education, etc). And of course their motivation is to disenfranchise minority and low income votes.

But most people these days have about a 280 character attention span, so burying critical facts halfway down the article is misleading. (How many threads on DU are wild rants by people who didn't even bother to click through to the article . . . or even more to the point, you apparently read my post quickly enough that you believed I needed to be schooled on a point I had already expressly acknowledged.)

So the question I was addressing is whether it is appropriate for a state to have one city had longer voting hours than the rest of the state? You know we'd be screaming bloody murder if the situation was reversed (Atlanta with an hour less than the less African American rest of the state). In fact, that is precisely the outrage that the article was written to tap into - the impression that the bill would give Atlanta fewer voting hours than the rest of the state.

A better solution than shortening Atlanta's voting hours would be to extend the voting hours in the rest of the state. That way everyone, including the poor and minority outside of Atlanta, have access to the same extended hours.

[Cattledog]

3. They can only win by making it hard to vote.

[SFnomad]

4. Democrats cherish the right to vote ... Republicans fear it n/t

[Thunderbeast]

5. Get rid of polls altogether.

I post this every time issues arise about voter suppression implemented by restrictive hours or limiting voting machines.

Oregon and Washington vote exclusively by mail. Each returned envelope is signed. Signatures are compared to voter registration forms. Voter registration is automatic for anyone with a driver's license.

Voting access is only difficult because it serves the interests of those with embedded power.

Fixing it ain't that hard.

[Takket]

8. in this day and age going to the polls seems quite absurd.

So many easier ways we could do this. And the method you describe solves a LONG list of problems. No issue for the disabled or elderly getting to the poll, no issue of needing ballots to recount, no issue of people's registration being question after they are inexplicably purged, no issue of parents with kids not being able to get away to vote, no issue of people working multiple jobs having no time to vote, no issue of intimidation at the polls................. DAMN that more i think about this the more I'm wondering why we aren't demanding this EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!