New Georgia Election Laws Are Some F*ckeroony F*ckulence!

Disenfranchisement and chaos, what's not to love!

Not peachy. Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

Vlad Putin, sipping a chai on the veranda of his summer dacha, could not dream of a prettier mess than the shitshow that’s about to be the elections in Georgia, USA. Back in May we wrote about how certain Georgia Republicans are going balls-out to throw the state to a certain felon, rapist, and scoundrel, by disenfranchising voters and sowing chaos, and they’re not even being subtle about it. And in just the past week, the State Election Board has given itself even more powers to meddle in elections and make voters’ registrations gone with the wind.

Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Georgia State Election Board passed a brand-new rule that gives themselves the right to delay election certification, and themselves the discretion to investigate any elections in the state, if they want to. Is it legal? Probably not! Is there time for a judge to intervene to stop them before the election? Probably not! Was that why they waited until 91 days before the election to change the rule? Probably!

Trump himself is so pleased with the new rules that he praised and thanked the three Republican members of the board who passed it by name at a rally last Saturday, calling Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.” A rare shout-out from the guy who usually saves his praise for Putin and Hannibal Lecter. 

And that’s not all GA is up to! There’ll be fewer poll workers this year, plus more election-deniers in place as “poll watchers,” looking for things to “investigate!” Can’t certify Fulton County until they get to the bottom of whether poll-workers were passing each other USB drives or mints, and that could take years. What happens if an investigation goes on past election-certification deadlines? Guess we’ll find out! 

The state also launched a new web site that lets anybody cancel anybody else’s voter registration, so long as they have their driver’s license number and last four digits of their Social Security number. And then a site glitch briefly made voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers public. Oops! (Or was it?) Since 2020, the state has purged about 875,000 voters from the rolls, according to Democracy Docket. And once a voter is kicked off, the burden is on the voter to show up to a hearing and prove their residency or eligibility. And if the dumped voter didn’t get the letter or can’t make the hearing date, tough shit! Maybe you can cast a provisional ballot. But with fewer poll workers to count those, and short deadlines to count them, maybe that vote will be counted, and maybe not. Frankly, my dear, they don’t give a damn.

Conservatives have been eagerly combing through voter databases, with the help of software called EagleAI. And not just in Georgia but in other states too, including Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, and Ohio. Cleta Mitchell reportedly crowed in a software presentation, “the Left will hate this — hate this. But we love it.” In case you thought there was some kind of bipartisan benefit they were going for.

This is all in addition to the passel of fuckerooney laws that drawling dishtowel Governor Brian Kemp has signed that make voting as difficult and inconvenient as possible.

And that’s not all! Now the elections board wants to (illegally) investigate the 2020 election, again, just to make Trump happy. Really, there does not seem to be any other point. Your tax dollars at work, Georgia!

Could it get any more chaotic? Well, the opening of a new campaign office for Trump in Valdosta descended into spitting and a fistfight between a conservative pro-paper-ballots activist, Sam Carnline, and Brandon Phillips, the top aide to US Republican Rep. Mike Collins. Carnline says Phillips spat in his face, and then Carnline started punching.

Lawzy!

Since 1868, really, Georgia’s been extra-mighty hard to suppress votes. And since 2020 they’ve really picked up the pace.

There was the bill in 2021 (SB 202), the one with no offering water or snacks to people in line, letting the State Elections Board replace a county’s election board and certify their votes for them, letting any voter challenge the eligibility of as many other voters in their county as they want to, giving less time for voters to request absentee ballots, a shorter window for mail-in ballots, banning mobile voting centers, removing the secretary of state from the voting board (eff you, Raffensperger), limiting drop boxes, requiring ID numbers on mail-in ballots, allowing less time and fewer locations for early voting, and limiting the time that provisional ballots can be counted.

And then, Kemp signed three more bills of vote-suppression insanity (SB 189, HB 974, HB 1207), which make it even easier for anybody to file sketchy mass voter challenges to remove voters from the rolls, based on any “relevant circumstances,” even rando Facebook screenshots.

The new laws also let voter registrations be challenged up to 45 days before an election, which violates the National Voter Registration Act banning removal within 90 days of an election. It bans non-residential addresses. Live in an apartment at your golf motel and omelet bar? Off the rolls! Go to college and don’t cancel your registration in your home state? Off the rolls! A conspiracy theorist noticed you’re a Democrat who moved to Alpharetta recently? Challenged! Off the rolls! Off with all of you, until the board of election reviews the challenge! Perhaps you want to vote with a provisional ballot until then? Maybe they’ll be able count your vote by their deadline, or maybe they won’t, and they’ll just toss it out!

Yes, lawsuits are pending over all of this. But one thing’s for sure, Election Day in Georgia’s going to be a hot fucking mess. If you want to follow along at home, Democracy Docket is keeping track of all the fuckulence, in Georgia and other states. Polls show Harris and Trump neck-in-neck in the state, so every vote there will count, bigly. 

Buckle up y’all!