Georgia County Bizarrely Kills Early Voting Because It Would Mean More People Could Vote /
Georgia County Bizarrely Kills Early Voting Because It Would Mean More People Could Vote
Zaid Jilani
Georgia has a slew of competitive statewide races for the first time in more than a decade. Around the state, battles are brewing over early voting, which would allow more people—especially working class people who typically have to work on election day—the opportunity to vote.
After Georgia's populous Dekalb County moved to open up October 26th as a Sunday early voting day, the state's embattled Republican Governor Nathan Deal blasted the move as "partisan," while a GOP state senator said he wanted to "eliminate this election loophole."
This week, Georgia conservatives on the Bibb County Board of Elections killed a proposal similar to Dekalb's that would've opened up an extra Sunday for voting. Their excuse? Early voting would mean more...voting, according to Republican board member Rinda Wilson:
Rinda Wilson, a Republican, called it "a partisan thing" backed by Democrats: "There have been six states that have been targeted, Georgia being one of them, that this would be a way just to wring out every last vote."
The fights in Dekalb, Bibb, and elsewhere in Georgia have turned into a full-blown war on voting rights, as Republicans fear that the state's shifting demographics will result in the end of GOP control of the state.