After Major League Baseball introduced just lately that it will transfer the All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver in protest of recent voting restrictions in Georgia, quite a few outstanding Republicans accused it of hypocrisy.
“Georgia has 17 days of in-person early voting, including two optional Sundays; Colorado has 15,” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia told Fox News. “So what I’m being told, they also have a photo ID requirement. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina made the same argument in a widely circulated post on Twitter.
But whereas the 15-day and 17-day numbers are correct, the general comparability isn’t. Here are 4 key variations between Colorado’s and Georgia’s methods.
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In Colorado, each registered voter receives a mail poll by default.
In Georgia, individuals who need to vote by mail should apply, and the brand new legislation greater than halves the time they’ve to do this: Previously, they may apply as a lot as 180 days earlier than an election, however now not more than 78 days earlier than. Georgia additionally forbids officers to ship voters an absentee poll utility until they request it.
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In Colorado, when residents apply for a driver’s license, they’re routinely registered to vote. And in the event that they aren’t registered by way of that course of, they’ll register individually anytime, together with on Election Day.
In Georgia, all potential voters should full a registration type, and the deadline is a month earlier than Election Day.
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In Colorado, solely newly registered voters have to offer identification with their mail-in poll; for subsequent elections, all that’s required is their signature. And opposite to Mr. Kemp’s assertion, there isn’t any picture requirement: Voters can use a start certificates, a naturalization doc, a Medicare or Medicaid card, a utility invoice, a financial institution assertion, a paycheck or one other authorities doc that exhibits their title and tackle.
In Georgia, solely picture identification is appropriate for normal mail-in ballots, and it must be one of six specific types. The requirement will apply to everybody who votes by mail, not simply to newly registered voters as in Colorado.
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In Colorado, there have been 368 ballot drop boxes final 12 months throughout the state’s 64 counties, not simply in authorities buildings but additionally at colleges, parks, libraries, companies and extra. Boxes had been open 24 hours a day.
In Georgia, the brand new legislation requires at the very least one drop field in every of the 159 counties. (Mr. Kemp and different officers be aware that earlier than the pandemic, Georgia didn’t have drop bins in any respect.) The bins will probably be solely at registrars’ and absentee poll clerks’ places of work or inside early-voting websites, and open throughout restricted hours.
In 2020, Colorado had the second-highest turnout fee within the nation: 76.4 % of eligible voters, behind solely Minnesota, in keeping with data compiled by the United States Elections Project. Georgia was twenty sixth, with a turnout fee of 67.7 % of eligible voters.
