When folks say Georgia's voting restrictions law "expands" early voting, they're talking it requiring counties to allow Saturday voting & hold 8 hours of early voting.

Large majority Black counties already do this.

So who benefits? 1/6
A lot of rural white counties in Georgia don't offer Saturday voting or Sunday voting and, in some cases, only do half days of early voting.

This law requires GOP-leaning white to hold early voting on Saturdays & for at least 8 hours (9-5). 2/6
So this "expansion" isn't for areas with majority Black voters or Democratic-leaning voters. It's to force majority white counties to make sure Black voters don't have an advantage.

3/6
Of course, even with more early voting that majority rural white precincts, majority Black precincts still didn't have an overall advantage.

Voters in 90% non-white precincts waited, on average, 51 minutes to vote. In 90% white precincts? 6 minutes. 4/6
So the expansions to early voting in the law are targeted to rural, white GOP leaning voters.

The restrictions in the law, such as bans on handing out food and water, are targeting at Black voters who wait in lines 8x as long on average (some waited 8 hours). 5/6
They've could've uniformly boosted voting access by adjusting resource allocations to deal w/wait time disparities.

But that wasn't the goal.

Making it easier for rural white people to vote helps the party.

So does making it harder for Black folks in Atlanta to vote. 6/6

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ashton Pittman ✊🏻🏳️‍⚧️

Ashton Pittman ✊🏻🏳️‍⚧️ Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ashtonpittman

1 Apr
NEW: U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker is claiming that Georgia's new voter restrictions law "actually expands voting opportunities."

The Mississippi Republican is referring to a part of the law that mainly benefits rural white voters in GOP strongholds. 1/
mississippifreepress.org/10850/sen-wick…
Sen. Roger Wicker: “(Delta) Airlines CEO caves to the left with a false narrative about the new Georgia voting law, which actually expands voting opportunities. He should be ashamed of himself.”

But does it really? (Read on). 2/
mississippifreepress.org/10850/sen-wick…
Georgia's new law restricts voting in a number of ways, particularly ones most likely to impact Black voters.

But it actually requires rural polling places, typically in majority white, GOP-leaning parts of the state, to offer more early voting. 3/ mississippifreepress.org/10850/sen-wick…
Read 15 tweets
1 Apr
The news dudes pretending that maybe the intent of the Georgia Jim Crow law isn't so bad & that people are overreacting simply aren't qualified to tell the truth in this moment of peril for democracy.

To bolster his view, he cites the Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation, mind you, is one of the key forces behind these anti-voter Jim Crow laws:

"Heritage, through its politics arm Heritage Action for America, is planning to spend $24 million across 8 states: AZ, FL, GA, IA, MI, NV, TX and WI." nytimes.com/2021/03/23/us/…
The Heritage "Fact Check" says that there's no need to worry about the Jim Crow law letting the state usurp control over elections from select counties (surely they wouldn't target Democrat counties in Atlanta?!).

vox.com/22352112/georg…
Read 7 tweets
31 Mar
BREAKING: After Mississippi lawmakers failed to pass early voting and Gov. Reeves vowed a veto if they did, one lawmaker and some citizens are taking the matter to voters.

They'll file a ballot initiative tomorrow mandating 10 days of early voting. 1/mississippifreepress.org/10802/voting-s…
If petitioners gather enough signatures and voters adopt the proposed change, the Mississippi Constitution would require AT LEAST 10 days of early voting, including the two Saturdays prior to the election.

Currently, Mississippi offers no early voting. 2/
mississippifreepress.org/10802/voting-s…
“Long lines discourage voting, and last year, Gov. Reeves stated he would veto early voting legislation. This year, there were nine early voting bills submitted, but none of them got out of committee," said House Rep. Hestor Jackson-McCray. #MSLeg 3/
mississippifreepress.org/10802/voting-s…
Read 17 tweets
30 Mar
TIMELINE THREAD: From day one, Gov. @TateReeves' approach to the novel coronavirus pandemic has been to follow the virus' lead.

Repeatedly, instead of proactive measures to stop #COVID19 from pushing us to crisis mode, he waits until we are deep into crisis to take action.
ROUND 1

March 11, 2020: MS confirms 1st case as WHO declares pandemic. Gov. Reeves is vacationing in Spain.

March 24, 2020: Reeves will "wait-&-see" before issuing shelter-in-place order (1 Dead)

April 1, 2020: Reeves issues "shelter" order (22 Dead)mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
ROUND 2

June 26, 2020: Dr. Dobbs predicts mass death, hospitals overwhelmed. (1,022 Dead)

July 9: Health leaders beg for mask mandate as ICUs fill up. (1,204 Dead)

Aug. 4: Reeves issues mask mandate, says: "I want to see college football." (1,753 dead) mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
Read 9 tweets
30 Mar
This clip, starting at 11 seconds, where @CindyHydeSmith talks about entering politics as a woman & the "crusty old buzzards" who didn't want hear there, is the kind of human story I hoped she'd share with me when I begged her campaign for a sit-down interview in 2018. 1/
Both of her opponents that year, a Republican and a Democrat, sat & talked with me for hours both about issues and about who they were.

But Sen. Hyde-Smith's campaign didn't trust that she, our first woman senator, to withstand a prolonged interview with a journalist. 2/
So I never got that chance to do a sit-down interview with Sen. Hyde-Smith & let her share her ideas and her human side and stories.

The closest I ever got was her swearing on her daughter's life (while side-hugging her) that she'd never voted for Hillary Clinton. (Disputed) 3/
Read 6 tweets
30 Mar
NEW: For some, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's claim that a new voting rights bill would "undermine" the 19th Amendment was absurd.

For Black Mississippians, it recalled a time when white feminists not only excluded Black women, but used racism for advantage. 1/
mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…
“As a woman in Congress right now, I am the beneficiary of the women who fought for women to have the right to vote. This (bill) would undermine all of this," Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith said last week as she announced her opposition to #HR1. 2/
mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…
“If we want to talk about suffragists, that’s part of why #HR1 is necessary. Because if you feel like this is going to take away what suffragists did, well, HR 1 aims to move past that bc it was only for white women..."
—Arekia Bennett, @MSVotes 3/
mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…
Read 19 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!