Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling, his top lieutenant, proved this week that there are no Republican heroes. While they might have fought Trump’s Big Lie (perhaps largely because they were the ones getting death threats) when it comes to holding free and fair elections in which a Democrat has a very good chance of winning, they are cheating Republicans to the core.
The two officials reversed course this weekend, after having assured voters in at least “some counties” they would “likely have Saturday voting following Thanksgiving.” The next day, once it was assured that Democrats would have the Senate majority regardless of the outcome of the Georgia runoff between Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Hershel Walker, they reneged, sending out an advisory memo to local officials telling them that voting won’t be allowed that Saturday because it’s the day after a holiday. That state holiday used to be known as Robert E. Lee’s Birthday, now it’s just a state day off. This is after Republicans cut the runoff campaign period in half to help the GOP win. Now they’re trying to take a critical day of voting away.
Democrats, who have a pretty good record of beating this kind of cheating in the courts, are suing. Warnock’s campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Party of Georgia (DPG) filed suit in the Superior Court of Fulton County of Georgia to secure that day of early voting, and they’ve got some good evidence on their side.
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If the Saturday after Christmas wasn’t sacrosanct to GOP officials, while all of a sudden is the Saturday after Thanksgiving?
“It’s not our choice. It’s literally in black-letter law that the Saturday following a state holiday cannot be used for early voting,” said Sterling. “We all thought there was going to be Saturday voting until we looked at the law really closely.” It’s the same law as in 2020-21.
It’s cherry-picking, the Democrats say, because the provisions they are citing to block the vote don’t apply to runoffs. In writing the statute, the Georgia legislature “expressly distinguished between three different categories of elections”, they point out: a primary election; a general election; and a runoff. And the ban on early Saturday voting after a holiday “applies only to primary and general elections, not runoffs.”
If Raffensperger is going to conflate runoffs with primary and general elections, they say, then he should be instructing the counties to have voting available on November 19, because state law requires that the polls have to be open on the second and third Saturdays before primary and general elections. If runoffs are supposed to be treated just the same as other elections, then there should be that extra day as well.
“That is not how the statute operates: if the sentence’s prohibition on holding advance voting on a Saturday after a holiday applies to runoffs, so too must its command that advance voting be held on the second and third Saturday in the first place,” they write. “To read the statute otherwise is nonsensical.”
Yes, it’s nonsensical. It’s also cheating. Republicans—and particularly Georgia Republicans—will do anything to keep Democrats down. Their new law slashed ballot box access for absentee ballots. They cut the time for runoff voting in half after Democrats Jon Ossoff and Warnock won in 2020-21, and now they’re twisting the law to cut out key early voting days.
The only answer is to fight in the courts and on the ground, by making sure that the Warnock campaign has the money and the volunteers to get out his vote. The DSCC and party are making sure the court battle is covered. We can help with the rest.
There are plenty of opportunities to help get out the vote in Georgia, and we’ve made it easy for you to find them. Just go here, scroll down to learn more, and sign up!
