Corporate actions, political disinformation is hypocritical and destructive

I was surprised when President Joe Biden made the claim that Georgia’s election integrity laws “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” What? Is election integrity racist?

Then 100 woke CEOs met on a Zoom call to organize and fight election integrity while the MLB hurt mostly minority-owned small businesses in Atlanta by moving the All Star game to mostly White Denver. The irony, hypocrisy and idiocy just scream out in how to be an anti-racist.

The CEO’s message is clear to other governors: “If you pursue election integrity, we will boycott your state.” Do they know that at least 35 other states already have voting ID requirements? Maybe not for long though, because their state laws will be nullified if the Senate approves House Resolution 1, which passed the House on a party-line vote. To see voting laws by state, visit https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state.

By the way, I wonder how many of those 100 corporations require employee photo IDs or IDs for buying liquor or cashing checks? Is that racist? Just wondering.

Conservative Clergy of Color, a group of Black ministers and pastors, published a full-page ad in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution correcting the “lies” that Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams have been telling about the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021. They decried the disinformation campaign as “devastating” the minority-owned small businesses in Atlanta by encouraging the boycotts and other forms of economic retribution against the state.

“Biden and Abrams keep saying the Election Integrity Act is worse than Jim Crow, which is an insult to millions of Black Americans,” Bishop Aubrey Shines said. “The truth is that this law actually expands access to the ballot box, while also taking common-sense steps to protect the sanctity of every legal vote. We believe that it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat and the Georgia Integrity Act makes that possible for all voters.”

It makes sense to me and apparently I’m not alone. A recently released Rasmussen Report found that 75% of likely U.S. voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to the requirement.

According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, only about 9,000 Georgia voters don’t have a qualifying ID, and it is reportedly easy to obtain and free.

Besides the voter ID, there have been stories highlighting the “inhumane” restriction on passing out food and water within 150 feet of a polling place, often claiming it would be illegal altogether. Again, it is not true. It’s legal for voters to bring their own and for polling officials to pass it out.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the law is aimed at cracking down on “line warming,” for which multiple officials are presently under investigation. It includes giving any sort of gift that may “inappropriately influence voters in the crucial final moments before they cast their ballots,” he said.

It’s demeaning and infantilizing to think people can’t be responsible for their own water.

After Biden joined in on the media’s misinformation push, The Washington Post gave him “Four Pinocchios” for falsely claiming more than once that Georgia’s law “ends voting hours early.”

The Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted that this claim could not be more incorrect.

“This was the section of law that expanded early voting for many Georgians,” he said March 30. “On Election Day in Georgia, polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and if you are in line by 7 p.m., you are allowed to cast your ballot. Nothing in the new law changes those rules.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was also forced to issue a correction after falsely claiming that “the new law would limit voting hours.”

Fight the disinformation and political rhetoric stoking racism and division which is destroying our country.

Julie Reeder can be reached by email at [email protected].