Letters to the Editor: The 2020 election is proof that Georgia's new law is voter suppression
To the editor: On the legitimacy of the voter suppression issue, I think Jonah Goldberg is off base. ("The fallout in Georgia shows what endless political war gets you," Opinion, April 6)
Georgia was ground zero last November on election integrity. It held two — count 'em, two — recounts. The results produced negligible vote differences.
The rational conclusion is that there was nothing hinky about Georgia's election practices. They were airtight. Thus, the Republican argument that the state's new voting law is necessary to ensure secure and fair elections is bogus.
Georgia has been trending purple for a while. Its new law is designed to suppress the votes of people whom the Republicans do not like, in an effort to stave off the emerging Democratic majority.
Finally, voting should be easy. Georgia's election experience proves voting can be easy and secure.
Evelyn Baran, Beverly Hills
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To the editor: Goldberg's both-sides assessment of the "debacle" of Georgia's new voting law is the equivalent of today's "but other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
He acknowledges the "troubling measure" allowing the Republican-controlled State Election Board to override local election officials, essentially allowing it to overturn results, but then insists that the other measures aren't really as bad as the Democrats claim and certainly not Jim Crow-level voter suppression.
But if the state Legislature through its Election Board can legally overturn results that it does not like, then does the severity or permissiveness of anything else in the bill really matter? Sounds like game over to me.
Laura Gallop, Agoura Hills
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To the editor: Goldberg provides a textbook case of what it means to lie by omission.
He admits that as secretary of state, Brian Kemp "oversaw the legal, but aggressive, updating — critics say 'purging' — of the voter rolls" in the leadup to the 2018 governor's race. His opponent in the race for governor, Stacey Abrams, pointed out that most of that "updating" served to throw voters of color off the rolls.
Kemp "won" by about 55,000 votes, a figure Goldberg cites, as if to prove how tendentious Abrams' claim of voter suppression was. What Goldberg fails to include is the number of voters Kemp threw off the voter rolls. In July 2017 alone, Kemp's office purged 560,000 registrations.
The claim of voter suppression was valid then, and the latest antics of the Georgia Republican Party prove that it is not done yet with trying to suppress minority voters in that state.
Eric A. Gordon, Los Angeles
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
