President Joe Biden criticized a new Georgia voting law as an “atrocity” that is “nothing but punitive” on Friday during a gaggle with reporters.
Upon leaving the White House, President Biden tells us the new Georgia voting law is an “atrocity” that is “nothing but punitive.” On making giving out water to voters in line, he says, “Give me a break.”
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 26, 2021
The White House also released a statement calling the law “Jim Crow in the 21st Century.”
Biden bashes the new Georgia voting law, calling it an "atrocity."
"They pass a law saying you can't provide water for people standing in line … This is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting."pic.twitter.com/8XpkhyE6Xq
— The Recount (@therecount) March 26, 2021
“Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process,” Biden said of the 2020 election in a statement.
“Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. 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.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed the bill into law on Thursday. The legislation calls for changing the rules and processes for requesting an absentee ballot, including mandating that voters present valid forms of photo identification.
The measure also limits drop boxes and the early voting period for runoff elections and gives the state the authority to take over county elections or remove local elections officials if there is a need to do so.
The bill, which passed along party lines in both chambers of the state legislature, also prohibits food and beverages from being offered by outside groups to voters waiting in line to cast their ballots.
Biden’s comments come one day after he said he agreed with former President Barack Obama that the filibuster “was a relic of the Jim Crow era.”
However, when asked why he hadn’t worked to end the procedural rule that requires a 60-vote threshold for most legislation to pass the Senate, Biden said “successful electoral politics is the art of the possible.”
“Let’s figure out how we can get this done and move in the direction of significantly changing the abuse of even the filibuster rule first,” Biden said. “It’s been abused from the time it came into being, by an extreme way in the last 20 years. Let’s deal with the abuse first.”