After Main League Baseball introduced just lately that it could transfer the All-Star Recreation from Atlanta to Denver in protest of latest voting
After Main League Baseball introduced just lately that it could transfer the All-Star Recreation from Atlanta to Denver in protest of latest voting restrictions in Georgia, quite a few outstanding Republicans accused it of hypocrisy.
“Georgia has 17 days of in-person early voting, together with two optionally available Sundays; Colorado has 15,” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia instructed Fox Information. “So what I’m being instructed, additionally they have a photograph ID requirement. So it doesn’t make an entire lot of sense to me.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina made an identical argument in a extensively circulated put up on Twitter.
However whereas the 15-day and 17-day numbers are correct, the general comparability just isn’t. Listed here are 4 key variations between Colorado’s and Georgia’s programs.
-
In Colorado, each registered voter receives a mail poll by default.
In Georgia, individuals who need to vote by mail should apply, and the brand new regulation greater than halves the time they’ve to do this: Beforehand, they might apply as a lot as 180 days earlier than an election, however now not more than 78 days earlier than. Georgia additionally forbids officers to ship voters an absentee poll software except they request it.
-
In Colorado, when residents apply for a driver’s license, they’re mechanically registered to vote. And in the event that they aren’t registered by that course of, they will register individually anytime, together with on Election Day.
In Georgia, all potential voters should full a registration kind, and the deadline is a month earlier than Election Day.
-
In Colorado, solely newly registered voters have to offer identification with their mail-in poll; for subsequent elections, all that’s required is their signature. And opposite to Mr. Kemp’s assertion, there is no such thing as a picture requirement: Voters can use a start certificates, a naturalization doc, a Medicare or Medicaid card, a utility invoice, a financial institution assertion, a paycheck or one other authorities doc that reveals their title and tackle.
In Georgia, solely picture identification is appropriate for normal mail-in ballots, and it needs to be one in every of six particular varieties. The requirement will apply to everybody who votes by mail, not simply to newly registered voters as in Colorado.
-
In Colorado, there have been 368 poll drop bins final 12 months throughout the state’s 64 counties, not simply in authorities buildings but in addition at colleges, parks, libraries, companies and extra. Containers had been open 24 hours a day.
In Georgia, the brand new regulation requires no less than one drop field in every of the 159 counties. (Mr. Kemp and different officers word that earlier than the pandemic, Georgia didn’t have drop bins in any respect.) The bins can be solely at registrars’ and absentee poll clerks’ places of work or inside early-voting websites, and open throughout restricted hours.
In 2020, Colorado had the second-highest turnout price within the nation: 76.four % of eligible voters, behind solely Minnesota, based on knowledge compiled by the USA Elections Venture. Georgia was 26th, with a turnout price of 67.7 % of eligible voters.