In March 2021, Georgia Republicans led by Governor Brian Kemp passed and enacted Senate Bill 202, a common sense election law. Democrats and their left-wing media allies went into full-on misinformation mode and launched a conspiracy theory that the law would suppress voters. Their scam went all the way to the top: Joe Biden described the law as “Jim Eagle” and compared those who supported it to prominent racists like Jefferson Davis and Bull Connor. Major League Baseball caved to the left-wing mob and moved its planned 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta, costing the city’s businesses – many of them black-owned – $100 million in projected revenue.
Fast forward to May 2022, when Georgia’s new election law was put to the test during the primary election. Turnout went through the roof, including among the minority voters, like myself, who Biden, Stacey Abrams, and Raphael Warnock claimed would be suppressed. Democrats have refused to apologize. Now, voting in Georgia’s general election is underway. Guess what? Turnout is shattering records. In just the first few days of early voting, more than one million Georgians have already voted – that’s twice as many votes cast at this same point during the 2018 midterm elections. Over this past weekend, Georgia’s early vote total even surpassed the 2020 early vote total by 20%: keep in mind that 2020 was a Presidential election year, which historically sees higher levels of turnout than midterm years. To top it all off, elections are running smoothly, with none of the “long lines and mismanagement” from the past.
Republicans often say that their election policies are designed to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. That is exactly what is playing out in Georgia right now. Republicans want more people of all backgrounds voting – but doing so with basic, widely-supported safeguards such as voter ID, bipartisan poll-watching, and bans on ballot harvesting. When turnout goes up and elections run smoothly, that means that our democratic system is working as intended.
Unfortunately, Democrats have still not apologized for their costly conspiracy theories. In fact, they’re doubling down. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently made the ludicrous statement that high turnout and voter suppression can exist at the same time. Stacey Abrams is refusing to acknowledge the reality on the ground and is still insisting that voters are somehow being suppressed. It also bears mentioning that Abrams’ “Fair Fight” group – a misleading name if there ever was one – recently lost a major lawsuit about this very issue. She is trying to scam the people she’s running to represent.
I will be blunt. Making false claims of voter suppression when Georgia’s elections are running smoothly – and then not apologizing when called out for misleading voters – is cynical and offensive. It does a tremendous disservice to those Americans who suffered at the hand of real voter suppression and sacrificed so much to get a seat at the table of our democratic process. Democrat politicians are lying to you when they create these conspiracy theories out of thin air. They’re doing it because they want to get ahead, and they’re doing it because they know the mainstream media will cover for them. Let me remind us all that there is one human race. When Democrats seek to divide the people of Georgia over skin color, they ignore the words of my Uncle ML, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Everyone on the ground in Georgia can see that turnout is through the roof for Americans of all backgrounds. That’s a wonderful thing that should be celebrated – not lied about for partisan gain.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are of Ms. Alevda King.