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.

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More from @LemieuxLGM

2 Apr
This is a VERY good analysis of why the Georgia vote suppression law is, in fact, very bad nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/…
The bill cuts the time frame for requesting absentee ballots in half. (Note -- and this will be a theme -- this is just pure vote suppression, with no even remotely colorable connection to fraud)
Compare how vote suppression apologist Rich Lowry poo-poos the dramatic cutback in ballot drop boxes with what the statute actually does. (Again, pure vote suppression -- there is zero evidence of fraud at drop boxes.)
Read 12 tweets
30 Mar
Higher ed is a real microcosm for the American political economy. Revenues -- mostly tuition -- have skyrockted (these are inflation-adjusted numbers): lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/univer…
But despite what the Republican nominees on the board of trustees might like to believe faculty compensation has actually *declined* during this period:
Mean salaries for full-time faculty have increased modestly, although far less than the growth in revenue, but far less faculty are full-time, and part-time faculty are generally compensated with starvation wages.
Read 6 tweets
28 Mar
The National Review, standing athwart the enfranchisement of Black voters yelling “stop!” since 1957 lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/the-na…
When Republican elites write stuff like this about their vote suppression laws, you wonder if they're lying to their readers or to themselves:
Does the Georgia law expand access to the ballot on net? Evaluating this requires looking at provisions that will be ignored if you're an NRO reader, and the answer is straightforward: slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 4 tweets
27 Mar
The NRO defending indefensible vote suppression efforts targeted at minority voters is inevitable -- they have a brand going back to 1957 to protect, after all -- but this would-be gotcha is hilarious stuff nationalreview.com/2021/03/joe-bi…
Biden said the law forbids providing water to voters standing in line, and that's exactly what it does. It's true that the law does not forbid bringing your own water but since Biden didn't say that it did I have no idea what the point is supposed to be.
Also, genuine LOL at the idea that the state will step in to alleviate the long lines in urban areas that Republicans have INTENTIONALLY MADE LONGER by eliminating both polling places and now drop boxes (the latter of which, needless to say, goes unmentioned.)
Read 5 tweets
26 Mar
Your reminder that the vote suppression law Georgia passed today will go into effect only because John Roberts decided to read Section 2 of the 15th Amendment out of the Constitution in the 21st century Dred Scott
The persons responsible for the Voting Rights Act understood that legislatures could be very creative about inventing vote suppression measures, and created an elegant solution. The Supreme Court threw it out with a decision that barely even pretended to be constitutional law.
It's worth noting that Shelby County is not the only Roberts Court atrocity deeply implicated in the wave of Republican vote suppression efforts. Rucho v. Common Cause is also a huge contributing factor lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/john-r…
Read 7 tweets
25 Mar
"Incoherent" seems too weak a term to describe this reflexive contrarian gibberish
"On one hand, disenfranchising 700,000 people is bad. O the other hand, enfranchising them would make the Senate slightly less unrepresentative. In conclusion, this would be bad because it would make Republicans mad." 👌
The most remarkable bullshitting done in this op-ed is to discuss the norms of statehood before the Civil War and not the addition of multiple empty western states AFTER the Civil War, because bringing up the latter would completely destroy his argument lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/03/is-dem…
Read 8 tweets

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