Thread by @LemieuxLGM

Complacency about Georgia's vote suppression statute is misplaced: lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/04/the-pr…

I don't disagree with everything in @Nate_Cohn analysis of the potential effects of the law, but this argument that it actually expands day-of access is way too charitable:

In terms of the early voting provisions, as the more detailed analysis that appeared in the Times yesterday makes clear, it will be irrelevant to the urban areas with the biggest lines, since they already had these early voting days: nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/…

As for the admonition to precincts with long lines in the previous election, it's basically vaporware. No targets in terms of what times are acceptable, no provision of resources -- it's far from clear it will have any impact at all:

As Cohn concedes, it's so vague it's all in the rollout, and as to whether the Republicans in charge of Georgia elections actually want to allieviate lines in Fulton County, the fact that they banned mechanisms that alleviated lines in Fulton County should be a big hint:

It IS true that the effect of these suppression measures tend to be modest, especially given that they tend to generate backlash... nytimes.com/2021/04/03/ups…

But both the presidential election and the forced runoff were decided by .3% of the vote. Effects can be very modest and still matter, and social science is too noisy to be certain that the suppression measures can't have that kind of impact.

In addittion, making people wait in line for hours to vote is bad, even if they're willing to do it. Particularly when the measures requiring them to do so are ostensibly targeted at "fraud" that is completely imaginary. Just make it as easy as possible for people to vote.

To put it another way, the intent of these provisions is clearly to suppress the vote, and except for the Voter ID provision don’t even pretend to prevent (non-existent) fraud. The burden of proof is on the state, and the social science very limited and uncertain.