Conservatives have recently made the logical point that the record-breaking early-voter turnout in Georgia this cycle disproves the malicious lie that Georgia’s recent election-integrity bill was a voter-suppression effort. Jonathan Chait’s new column takes issue with this argument.
To his credit, Chait admits that the rhetoric of some of his progressive counterparts has been hyperbolic: “Republicans do have a point here that Democrats exaggerated the effects of the Georgia voting restrictions. It was not, as President Biden hyperbolically labeled it, ‘Jim Crow on steroids.’ . . . Even by modern standards, Georgia’s law is relatively mild.” But, he continues, “there is also an irony in conservatives pointing to high voter turnout as vindication.” For this point, he cites some recent conservative columns, including a Corner post that I wrote this weekend, noting the recent record-breaking voter turnout. According to Chait, high voter turnout is “exactly the outcome” that the GOP has “tried to prevent.” Moreover, voter-turnout numbers alone are not a refutation of the voter-suppression allegation:
Comments