BREAKING NEWS ALERT via Washington Post:
Georgia lawmakers pass sweeping voting bill that would curtail the use of drop boxes and allow challenges to voting eligibility
The measure, which also expands early voting hours and makes it a crime to give voters food and water while they wait in line, now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has not yet announced whether he will sign it.
That’s right: this law “makes it a crime to give voters food and water while they wait in line” to exercise their right to vote. It’s still early in the season, but it’s certainly an ambitious entry for this year’s pettiest voter suppression law!
Still, I can’t help but think perhaps these assholes haven’t quite thought this through. For instance, I wonder whether there’s a (pro-business!) loophole wherein it’s not a crime to sell voters food and water while they wait in line to vote. Or whether the state’s police forces are actually on board with assigning hundreds of officers to enforce this statute on election day, especially when relations between Georgia’s police forces and its minority citizens ain’t exactly copacetic.
I also wonder whether they remembered to grant to themselves and the police officers who enforce the law full immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suits, after some diabetic dies in line when their blood sugar crashes and no one can offer them anything sweet to bring it back up. Or when someone requires emergency medical attention due to severe dehydration.
Maybe I’m overthinking this and worrying for nothing. I mean, it’s not like people in Georgia ever have to wait in line for eleven hours to vote! (Oh wait.)
Now before you get to thinking this law is obviously racially motivated because – as we can all predict with a pretty high level of certainty – it will never be enforced in majority white voting districts, rest assured that this is not the case at all! This law, by constitutional standards, is “racially neutral.” You see, it simply cannot be enforced in majority white districts, because those districts don’t have lines. DUH! No racism to see here, people! Nope, none at all.
I wonder who will try to out-petty Georgia with their voter suppression laws next? I have a feeling it won’t be very long before we have another strong contender.