The Washington Post acknowledged over the weekend that Georgians were turning out to vote in the midterm elections this year, despite previous reporting and claims to the contrary that Georgia’s new law to ensure election integrity would result in voter suppression.
The Post published a Saturday article headlined “Voting is rising in Georgia despite controversial new electoral law.” It reported that Georgia’s early voting was experiencing its highest turnout ever. This lays waste to the state’s claims as well as those made by Democrats and other left-wing figures. The law, signed in March 2021 by Gov. Brian Kemp’s March 2021 report amounted to Republican efforts to make it more difficult for voters to vote.
Reporters Amy Gardner and Matthew Brown said that after three weeks of early voting, record-breaking turnout has surpassed predictions that the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2020 would cause a drop in voting.
They also noted that early in-person voter turnout was three times higher than it was for the 2018 midterm elections and was even higher than it was for 2020, which was a presidential election year.
They also described an encounter with a Black voter at a polling station who was surprised by how easy it was for him to cast a vote despite hearing about voter suppression.
The voter stated that he was truly thrown back by the Post’s decision to allow him to vote in the same manner as he did, and to be treated with respect as a citizen of the United States.
The Post reported that Gardner and Brown had reported that Georgia’s new voting laws would result in fewer voters and make it more difficult for non-White voters vote.
In an April 2021 editorial, the Post’s editorial board stated that the law made voting more difficult and attacked its provisions as “anti-democratic.”
It stated that the law made voting more difficult and without sound policy justification. “Republicans are bending the rules to discourage Democratic voters”
“Republicans in many States, including Georgia have adopted a new strategy: Make it harder for people to vote. This is not a complete return to Jim Crow. It shows a toxic hostility towards democracy that no Republican can be proud of,” it said.
Many Democrats, including Stacey Abrams, the Georgia governor-elect, and President Biden, criticized the bill for attempting to suppress minorities’ votes.
