May 23rd 2024.
President Joe Biden faced heavy backlash from conservative leaders and commentators on social media after he made claims about Georgia's election law that were deemed inaccurate. During his speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta on May 18th, Biden asserted that voters were not allowed to have water while waiting in line to vote, saying, "Today in Georgia, they won't allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election. What in the hell is that all about?"
Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was quick to respond to Biden's comments, taking to Twitter to declare that they were false. "It's 2024. I can't believe we're still dealing with lies about Georgia's election from both the left and the right," Raffensperger wrote. "Once again, Georgia does not have lines. Biden owes our election officials an apology and should focus on the real issues, like the rising inflation that is impacting hard-working Georgians."
Zack Smith, a senior legal fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, also disputed Biden's statement, calling it "a factually false statement." He went on to explain that while all states have laws prohibiting electioneering near polling places, Georgia's law is reasonable in its aim to prevent potential voters from being unduly influenced by gifts or money while waiting to vote.
However, Smith acknowledged that there is some truth to Biden's claim. According to CNN, in 2023, a federal judge partially struck down a section of Georgia's election law that banned people from handing out food and water to voters waiting in line. This ban, which was signed into law in 2021 by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, was ruled to only be enforceable within a 150-foot "buffer zone" around the polling place. Beyond that, volunteers are permitted to hand out food and water to voters.
In the 2020 presidential election, volunteers across the country provided food and water to voters waiting in line, including in Georgia where lines were notoriously long. The law did allow for self-service water receptacles to be set up by poll workers. Jason Snead, the executive director of Honest Elections Project, accused Biden of continuously attacking Georgia with false claims. "Fact-checkers have debunked Biden's claims about Georgia's election law for years," Snead stated. "Thanks to this law, Georgia had a successful and highly attended election in 2022, and is poised to do the same this year. There is no excuse for continuing to spread these lies ahead of a high-stakes election."
In response to the law being implemented by Governor Kemp, Senator Jon Ossoff proposed a bill in the same year that would prohibit states from banning volunteers from distributing food and water to voters waiting in line to vote. Despite the backlash and controversy, Georgia's election law remains in effect with some modifications, as ruled by the federal judge. It is a topic that continues to spark debate and criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.
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