Ocean State Today

The reforms Georgia has made to its election laws under Senate Bill 202, signed in March by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, have been under attack by progressives with charges that the new law suppresses the minority vote.

But a look at election laws in many blue states show what Ken Cuccinelli, national chairman of the conservative-leaning Election Transparency Initiative, calls an “astonishing double-standard.” 

Cuccinelli cites the election laws in Rhode Island, where Democratic registrants outnumber Republicans by almost four to one.

“Rhode Island's voting laws make the Georgia law's changes meager in comparison,” Cuccinelli told Ocean State Today.

Rhode Island is one of 36 states that has a voter-ID provision in its election laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.The state, wrote Russell Berman for The Atlantic, enacted a substantially restrictive voter-ID law 10 years ago with support from “powerful black elected leaders.”

With a population of barely 1 million compared to Georgia's nearly 11 million residents, Rhode Island also requires two witnesses when submitting an absentee ballot. Berman also wrote that Rhode Island, as do many states in the Northeast, limits the period for political opponents to rally a base.

“Democrats who have won election after election in states such as New York, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island have had little incentive to change the rules that helped them win,” he wrote.

The Georgia voter-ID provision, in contrast, requires a driver’s license or a state ID, which 97% of registered Georgia voters have and can easily obtain, supporters argue. It’s a requirement that is popular in Georgia, according to a January poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which showed 74% of voters support it, including 63% of black voters and 89% of those making under $25,000 per year.

A March poll by Rasmussen found that nearly the same majority of voters nationwide agree. It showed that 75% of likely U.S. voters believe Americans should be required to show photo ID before voting, and only 21% are opposed to such a requirement.

Additional reforms to the Georgia voting law will allow 21 days of early voting in the 2022 election cycle, tighten security on ballot drop-boxes and on the absentee-voting process. Cuccinelli, the former Republican attorney general of Virginia, said that the reforms enacted in Georgia and in other states are imperative for voters to have confidence in their systems.

“Establishing integrity in the system is the ultimate measuring stick for voters to have confidence in their elections,” Cuccinelli said.

Critics of the Georgia measures say GOP lawmakers in the Peach State only showed interest in changing voting regulations after former President Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to lose the state since 1992.