Companies, government agencies, and professional sports organizations — such as Major League Baseball, which moved the 2021 All Star Game from Atlanta to Denver, as an example — are either banning official travel to Georgia or boycotting the state in some manner because of the recent passage of a law by the Georgia General Assembly known as either Senate Bill 202 or the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which is supposed to better secure fair elections in the state by having the process of voting easier to do while simultaneously ensuring that voter fraud is more difficult through a number of measures.
Are You Avoiding Travel to Georgia Because of the New Voting Law?
Brian P. Kemp — who is the current governor of Georgia — signed the bill into law on Thursday, March 25, 2021…
I was proud to sign S.B. 202 to ensure elections in Georgia are secure, fair, and accessible. I appreciate the hard work of members of the General Assembly to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. pic.twitter.com/1ztPnfD6rd
— Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) March 25, 2021
…but doing so with six other White men in front of a painting of a plantation was probably not exactly the best public relations move in the history of the state government…
Rep. Park Cannon breaks her silence on the March 25th arrest at the Georgia State Capitol https://t.co/pzaJZfKPHm
— Representative Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58) April 2, 2021
…and Park Cannon — who is a Black state representative for House District 58 in Georgia — was detained by law enforcement officers when she knocked on the door of the office during the private session of the signing of the bill into law by the governor.
Perhaps the @MLB should take a look at the restrictive voting laws in their home state of New York before criticizing ours. pic.twitter.com/Vd6IuzlMsq
— Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) April 3, 2021
Kemp has fiercely defended the new law, stating that “As governor, I refuse to back down from this fight because the integrity of our elections is the foundation of who we are as Georgians.”
As governor, I refuse to back down from this fight because the integrity of our elections is the foundation of who we are as Georgians. https://t.co/e1DTejwhEd
— Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) March 31, 2021
Opponents of the law claim that it suppresses and restricts the right to vote of people who are not White; and that it is a ploy by members of the Republican political party to attempt to prevent additional members of the Democratic political party from winning elections in the future — especially when Donald J. Trump claimed that the presidential election was stolen.
“The Georgia voting law — like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country — is a blatant attack on the right to vote, the Constitution, and good conscience”, Joseph R. Biden — who is the current president of the United States — said via his official Twitter account. “It’s Jim Crow in the 21st Century — and it must end.”
The Georgia voting law — like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country — is a blatant attack on the right to vote, the Constitution, and good conscience.
It’s Jim Crow in the 21st Century — and it must end.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 26, 2021
Summary
I currently am based in Georgia and have no plans to move out of the state in the foreseeable future; so avoiding travel to Georgia is not possible for me…
…but I have not yet read all 98 pages of the bill — nor have I reviewed the 95 pages of this version; nor have I verified for comparison purposes the claims that the election laws of certain other states are actually more restrictive than the one in Georgia — so I do not consider myself yet qualified to reach my own conclusion.
Thank you, @KarlRove. If President Biden is concerned about access to early voting, he should check in on his home state of Delaware, not Georgia. https://t.co/TaS9aGFdWz
— Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) April 1, 2021
I will say this before I go back to read the remainder of the entire bill, as I do not trust what the media broadcasts with their interpretations: I believe that every legal citizen of legal age in the United States has a right to vote for whomever he or she wants to elect to office — and not a single one of them should be prevented from doing so.
I intend to also cover the involvement of Delta Air Lines in the process of the creation of this law in a future article…
…but in the meantime: are you avoiding travel to Georgia because of the Election Integrity Act of 2021? Do you allow politics to determine where you travel in general?
All photographs ©2021 by Brian Cohen.