Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
Georgia GOP Passes Election Bill After Voters Gave Senate Control to Democrats
Posted
March 26, 2021
Views
23,422
Likes
372
Comments
938
Engagement
March 26, 2021
23,422
372
938
5.59%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
6:00Now PlayingGeorgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an overhaul of election laws Thursday shortly after it cleared the state legislature -- and less than three months after Georgia voters gave Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.
Justified as restoring “integrity” after unfounded allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, the new law has been described as an act of voter suppression by opponents. The measure requires identification for mail-in absentee voting for the first time, shortens the time for runoffs from nine weeks to four, cuts the window for requesting mail ballots and restricts the use of ballot drop boxes that eased voting during the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Jan. 5, high turnout among Black voters drove the twin victories of Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, stripping the Senate from Republican hands.
The measure also strips the top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, of his role as chairman of the elections board. Raffensperger had eased voting rules in the pandemic and resisted former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election. The legislature will now choose the elections board chairman.
Introduced this week, the bill passed both chambers of the legislature within days. It doesn’t include some of the most controversial proposals Republican lawmakers initially proposed: a requirement that many voters provide a photocopy of their driver’s license when requesting a mail ballot, and a measure that would’ve ended no-excuse absentee voting.
The law also does not cut in half Sunday voting -- used heavily by Black voters who attend church -- as Republicans initially had proposed. In fact, it expands weekend early balloting, including by letting counties approve Sunday voting.
The measure is certain to be challenged in court: In a tweet after it passed, Democratic election attorney Marc Elias threatened “an immediate lawsuit. I promise.”
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.
To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.
Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake
Connect with us on…
Breaking News on YouTube
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
