Biden Calls GA Election Law 'Jim Crow In The 21st Century'

ATLANTA — President Joe Biden condemned the new Georgia election law enacted Thursday night at the State Capitol.

“This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said in a statement Friday afternoon. “This is Jim Crowe in the 21st Century.”

Gov. Brian Kemp signed the law within hours of its passage, saying it made it “easier to vote and harder to cheat.”

Soon after Kemp signed the law, Biden called it “un-American” while giving his first press briefing Thursday evening.

The wave of GOP-sponsored state legislation comes as a backlash to failed efforts in Georgia and other states to overturn November election results that favored Biden over former President Donald Trump. Trump, in response to the loss, fomented bogus claims that the election was rigged against him in battleground states he expected to win.

Kemp fired back Friday afternoon in a rebuttal statement that was then quickly posted to Twitter.

The new Georgia law strips the Secretary of State's office of authority over elections after Brad Raffensperger defied Trump's demand to “find” votes that would reverse Biden's election win in the state.

Among other provisions, the law requires all voters to have a photo identification to vote in person and mandates that even absentee voters show evidence of possessing either a state driver’s license or a state ID with their ballot.

More than 200,000 eligible Georgia voters, including poor people, people of color, people living in rural communities, and the elderly, do not have any form of state ID.

The law also places absentee ballot drop boxes inside government buildings that can be locked after hours, reduces the amount of time available for early voting, and prohibits anyone from giving water or food to voters waiting in line at the polls.

U.S. House Bill 1, which seeks to offset some of the provisions of the Georgia law and others like it across the country, has passed the lower chamber of Congress.

“I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans to access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote,” Biden said.

“And I will make my case to the American people — including Republicans who joined the broadest coalition of voters ever in this past election to put country before party.”

Biden is in Wilmington, DE, and participated in a virtual fundraising event for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom’s reelection campaign this fall against City Council President Felicia Moore.