05.26.22

‘Record-Breaking Turnout’ In Georgia Exposes Democrats’ Cynical Lies

LEADER McCONNELL: ‘Shame On The Democrats Who Pushed The Big Lie That A Grand Scheme Was Afoot To Prevent Millions Of Americans From Voting. It Was Never True. It Was Just To Push Their Pre-Existing Policy Agenda’

 

SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “Five months ago, Democrats and the media were saying the sky was falling because of some states’ mainstream voting laws. Georgia passed a voting law that was more open than the rules on the books in blue states like New York and Delaware. Texas passed a law that switched off some one-time COVID exceptions like keeping polls open in the middle of the night. These mainstream laws brought a torrent of hysteria from the far left. Corporate America, Hollywood, and the corporate media rushed to condemn laws they hadn’t even read. It was totally untethered from reality…. At the peak of the crescendo, a few months back, 48 of 50 Senate Democrats voted to break this institution to ram through a three-year-old voting takeover bill on a partisan basis. Fortunately, a bipartisan majority saved the Senate. And now we’re seeing hard evidence that, as we all knew, the hysteria was never based in fact to begin with. Georgia’s primary election day is today. But we already know a lot thanks to early voting figures…. Turnout is up despite the fact that fewer Georgians are availing themselves of the state’s no-excuse mail-in voting. Georgians are getting back to in-person voting, a return to pre-pandemic norms, and doing so in huge numbers.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 5/24/2022)

  • LEADER McCONNELL: “Shame on the Democrats who pushed the Big Lie that a grand scheme was afoot to prevent millions of Americans from voting. It was never true. It was just to push their pre-existing policy agenda. The fake hysteria was just a pretext to push a sweeping national takeover of election laws that Democrats had already had on the shelf for several years. Now the rhetoric is proving false before our eyes. These commonsense Republican laws appear to be achieving just what the American people want: Making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 5/24/2022)

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO), Senate Rules Committee Ranking Member: “As the leader said, Democrats took the Senate right to the edge on this and basically were willing to federalize the national election process … The Georgia law expanded the number of mandatary -- mandatory early voting days. It codified drop boxes in every county, something that didn't exist at all before the pandemic. It aligned mail in deadlines with the postal recommendations to be sure the ballots actually got counted that were mailed in. It maintained no excuse absentee voting, which neither Delaware or New York has--two big critics of the law were the President and the majority leader--neither of their states have no excuse absentee voting. By Friday of last week -- that was the last day of early voting -- 800,000 Georgians cast early ballots. Four years ago, 300,000 Georgians cast early ballots. And in the Presidential, 326,000 Georgians voted in the Presidential. Substantially more than two times as many people voted under the so-called suppression law as had ever voted early in Georgia before. [N]ow remember, this is a law that not only took the Senate to the brink on -- over voter suppression. It was the law that moved the All-Star Game out of Atlanta because of legislative suppression that has turned out producing more early voting by far more than any other time in the state's history.” (Sen. Blunt, Press Conference, 5/24/2022)

 

Georgia’s Primary Election Broke Records For Turnout And Ran Smoothly, In Spite Of Democrats’ Disinformation

Georgia’s Early Voting Is Outpacing 2020 With More Than Three Times The Number Of Voters As In 2018

THE WASHINGTON POST: “Voting is surging in Georgia despite controversial new election law” (The Washington Post, 5/21/2022)

  • “[A]fter three weeks of early voting ahead of Tuesday’s primary, record-breaking turnout is undercutting predictions that the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021 would lead to a falloff in voting. By the end of Friday, the final day of early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast ballots — more than three times the number in 2018, and higher even than in 2020, a presidential year. … Defenders of the law accused Democrats, including President Biden and Stacey Abrams, the presumed Democratic nominee for Georgia governor this year, of hyping accusations of voter suppression because it resonated with their base and helped them raise money. They say the turnout numbers prove that the rhetoric around the law was false.” (“Voting Is Surging In Georgia Despite Controversial New Election Law,” The Washington Post, 5/21/2022)

On Election Day, Georgia Voters Encountered ‘Short Lines And Limited Problems,’ ‘In Fulton County, Voting Was Running Smoothly At Almost All Of The County’s 250 Polling Sites’

“Primary election day in Georgia arrived with short lines and limited problems Tuesday as voters made their voices heard in one of the politically competitive states in the nation…. In Fulton County, voting was running smoothly at almost all of the county’s 250 polling sites, in part thanks to the 91,000 voters who cast their ballots during three weeks of early voting, said Interim Elections Director Nadine Williams.” (“Voters Find Short Lines In Big Georgia Primary Election,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/24/2022)

“During in-person early voting over the last three weeks, Georgia voters shattered turnout records for a primary. Over 796,000 cast ballots over the last three weeks — two and a half times higher than the presidential primary two years ago. An additional 71,500 voters have returned absentee ballots as of Monday. On election day, primary turnout typically approaches 900,000 more voters.” (“Voters Find Short Lines In Big Georgia Primary Election,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/24/2022)

Elderly Black Voter: ‘I Had Heard That They Were Going To Try To Deter Us In Any Way Possible… To Go In There And Vote As Easily As I Did And To Be Treated With The Respect That I Knew I Deserved As An American Citizen — I Was Really Thrown Back’

“Patsy Reid — 70 years old, Black and retired — said she was surprised she didn’t encounter problems when she voted early this month. Reid cast her ballot for Abrams in the Democratic primary but feared that her vote could be discounted given reports of voter suppression against people of color in Georgia. ‘I had heard that they were going to try to deter us in any way possible because of the fact that we didn’t go Republican on the last election, when Trump didn’t win,’ Reid said. ‘To go in there and vote as easily as I did and to be treated with the respect that I knew I deserved as an American citizen — I was really thrown back.’” (“Voting Is Surging In Georgia Despite Controversial New Election Law,” The Washington Post, 5/21/2022)

Despite The ‘Record-Breaking Turnout’ Disproving Their Hysteria, Partisan Democrats Are Embarrassingly Still Insisting ‘Increased Turnout Has Nothing To Do With Suppression’

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): “The experience of one state by no means disproves the need for reform…even in Georgia, there’s no way of showing [turnout] wouldn’t have been larger if there were not voter suppression.” (Huffington Post’s Igor Bobic, @igorbobic, Twitter, 5/24/2022)

FORMER STATE REP. STACEY ABRAMS (D-GA): “We know that increased turnout has nothing to do with suppression…” (Stacey Abrams, Press Conference, 5/24/2022)

 

FLASHBACK: Democrats Made Outrageous, Hyperbolic Claims That Georgia’s Voting Law Was ‘Jim Crow 2.0’

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: “[W]hat’s been the reaction of Republicans in Georgia?  Choose the wrong way, the undemocratic way. To them, too many people voting in a democracy is a problem. So they’re putting up obstacles…. Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion.  It’s no longer about who gets to vote; it’s about making it harder to vote.  It’s about who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all. It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact.” (President Biden, Remarks, 1/11/2022)

  • PRESIDENT BIDEN: “So, I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered? At consequential moments in history, they present a choice: Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?  Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor?  Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.” (President Biden, Remarks, 1/11/2022)
  • PRESIDENT BIDEN: “And so I am convinced that we’ll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. I mean, this is gigantic what they’re trying to do, and it cannot be sustained.” (President Biden, Press Conference, 3/25/2021)

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “Our country has come a long way, supposedly, since African-Americans in the South were forced to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to vote. But some of these voter suppression laws in Georgia and other Republican states smack of Jim Crow, rearing its ugly head once again. It is 160 years since the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments abolish slavery and Jim Crow still seems to be with us.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 3/24/2021)

  • SCHUMER: “Senate Republicans are saying they are perfectly fine with laws that limit voter registration, limit early voting, limit the number of polling places and drop-boxes. They are even fine with policies that criminalize giving food and drink to voters at the polls. These laws are anathema to the very spirit of our Democracy. They are Jim Crow 2 and it is the Republican Party by and large in this Senate supporting the reenactment of those Jim Crow laws.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 1/10/2022)

FORMER STATE REP. STACEY ABRAMS (D-GA): “#SB202 suppresses voters, criminalizes compassion & seizes election authority from local + state officials. In 11 years, I never witnessed a massive bill approved at such speed and signed in such desperation. This wasn’t efficiency or principle. This is cowardice. #gapol” (Stacey Abrams, @staceyabrams, Twitter, 3/25/2021)

  • ABRAMS: “Georgia Republicans want to hide their shameful actions from public scrutiny. It’s Jim Crow in a suit + tie: cutting off access, adding restrictions, encouraging more ‘show me your papers’ actions to challenge a citizen’s right to vote. Facially neutral but racially targeted.” (Stacey Abrams, @staceyabrams, Twitter, 3/25/2021)

 

Even Some Editorial Boards Bought In To The Baseless Frenzy

THE WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL BOARD: “The [Georgia] law on the whole makes voting needlessly harder, and with no sound policy rationale. For provision after provision, only two interrelated explanations exist. One is partisanship: Republicans are twisting the rules to discourage Democratic voters from casting ballots. The other is a lie: that election fraud is an emergency demanding broad new restrictions. … In other words, the law targets methods of voting that Democrats favored last year. It stinks of bad faith. It is not, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed out, the most restrictionist of measures being considered in Republican-governed states. But it is emblematic of the Republican Party’s nationwide campaign to curb voting following former president Donald Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud in 2020. … A party confident in its policies would attempt to win new voters to its side. Republicans in many states, including Georgia, have adopted a different strategy: Make it harder to vote. No, that is not a full return to Jim Crow. But it shows a toxic hostility to democracy that no Republican can take pride in.” (Editorial, “Sorry, Republicans, Georgia’s New Law Makes Voting Harder — Not Better,” The Washington Post, 4/09/2021)

 

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SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Related Issues: Campaigns & Elections, Senate Democrats