As the early vote in Georgia rose higher and higher in recent weeks, both overall and among minorities, critics of the Georgia election-reform law insisted that the law was still somehow suppressing the vote, even though more and more Georgians were showing up to vote and finding the process easy.
“We know that increased turnout has nothing to do with suppression,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams contended yesterday. “Suppression is about whether or not you make it difficult for voters to access the ballot. And in Georgia, we know difficulty has been put in place for too many Georgians who vote by mail, who had to figure out a calendar of applying just early enough, but not too late.”
Four years ago, in the previous midterm election, a total of 555,089 votes were cast in Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial primary — 424,305 for Abrams, and 130,784 for her rival Stacey Evans.
This year, the preliminary total turnout in Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial primary was 708,559 — even though Abrams was running unopposed for her party’s gubernatorial nomination.
In other words, not only did the law decried as “Jim Crow 2.0,” “Jim Crow on steroids,” and “Jim Eagle” increase overall turnout; under the new law, 27 percent more people voted in the Democratic primary — even with an uncontested race. This is the odd voter-suppression bill that results in many, many, many more people voting.
Unsurprisingly, turnout increased on the Republican side as well. In 2018, 608,380 people voted in the first round of the GOP gubernatorial contest (Brian Kemp and Casey Cagle went to a runoff, where 588,307 Georgia Republicans voted.) This year, 1,189,921 Georgians voted in the GOP primary.