Gov. Brian Kemp said that there’s ‘nothing Jim Crow’ about Georgia’s new voting law and blasted Joe Biden and ‘his handlers’ for not having read it after the president accused it of being ‘un-American.’
Kemp had signed an ‘election integrity’ bill into law on Thursday that Biden had blasted in a statement from the White House as ‘Jim Crow in the 21st Century’ while urging Congress to pass national voting acts favored by Democrats.
‘It is obvious that neither President Biden nor his handlers have actually read SB 202, which I signed into law yesterday,’ Kemp said in a statement.
‘There is nothing ‘Jim Crow’ about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot – every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in-person.’
He continued: ‘President Biden, the left, and the national media are determined to destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box.’
Gov. Brian Kemp said that there’s ‘nothing Jim Crow’ about Georgia’s new voting law
Biden had blasted a new Georgia voting law as ‘Jim Crow in the 21st Century’ while urging Congress to pass national voting acts favored by Democrats
Kemp, a Republican, became governor in 2018 after he won in a race against Stacey Abrams, a powerful Democratic lawyer who many credited for the Democrats win during the runoff election for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats in January.
He had previously served as 27th Secretary of State of Georgia from 2010 to 2018 before he was elected governor.
‘As Secretary of State, I consistently led the fight to protect Georgia elections against power-hungry, partisan activists,’ Kemp said in the statement. ‘As Governor, I won’t back down from keeping Georgia elections secure, accessible, and fair.’
Kemp continued railing against Biden’s comments in an appearance on Fox News on Saturday when he briefly compared Georgia’s law to that of Biden’s home state of Delaware.
‘I don’t think the president or his handlers compared the Georgia voting law to the state of Delaware where he’s from because we have a lot more opportunities for people to vote early in the great state of Georgia than in Delaware,’ Kemp said.
Kemp claimed that the Georgia law will expand the opportunity for people to vote early in Georgia again and added the ability for people to vote on select Saturdays and Sundays.
‘It is further securing the absentee ballot process by simply adding a photo ID requirement or number from your ID that will actually speed up the absentee balloting by mail process that was very slow after the last election,’ Kemp said.
When asked by Fox News about Democratic concerns that the bill will disenfranchise black and minority voters, Kemp asked voters ‘to simply find out what’s in the bill.’
‘I would urge them to do just that and ask themselves, who is being truthful here,’ Kemp said.
‘Is it the governor and the legislature that just voted on this bill? Or is it a lot of these third party groups that are making millions of putting this false narrative out there? Or the president who obviously doesn’t know what his own voting laws are in his own state.’
Protesters gather to voice their opposition to a far-reaching overhaul of the Georgia’s election laws. Voting rights groups say the new law will target black residents who make up roughly a third of the state’s population
The bill was signed into law by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and has restrictive measures, including elimination of mobile voting vans that reduced long lines on Election Day, and criminalized distribution of food or water to anyone waiting in lines to vote
Voters are seen casting their ballots in the U.S. Senate run-off election, at a polling station in Marietta, Georgia on January 5
Volunteers with Democracy Delicious handing out food and refreshments to voters lining up outside a voting center in Austell, Georgia. The state’s new law has criminalized the distribution of food or water to people waiting to vote
Kemp reiterated his statements about how photo IDs are already required for voting in person.
‘We already have that requirement in our law for when you go vote in person. Before our last election an average of 95 percent voted in person so people are used to using the ID to vote in Georgia,’ Kemp said.
‘So it’s not a big deal like people are making it out, and if you don’t have an ID then we’ll give you one for free.’
Kemp then addressed claims from critics of the law who allege that it removes the ability to use drop boxes for voting.
‘That was never in the law. That has never been in the state law of Georgia. We did that in this bill, we’re just going to make sure it’s a secure process and that those drop boxes are monitored,’ he said.
In Biden’s statement, the president claimed the new law will ‘deny people the right to vote.’
‘More Americans voted in the 2020 elections than any election in our nation’s history,’ Biden said.
‘In Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate seats in January. Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process.’
Biden then accused Republicans of rushing through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote.
‘Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over. It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters,’ Biden claimed.
‘And it makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line – lines Republican officials themselves have created by reducing the number of polling sites across the state, disproportionately in black neighborhoods.’
The contains a number of restrictive measures including elimination of mobile voting vans, which reduced long lines on Election Day in heavily Democratic areas, and criminalizing the distribution of food or water to people waiting to vote.