Name:   architect - Subject:   Yes, a classic Archie fact Date:   4/7/2021 4:56:41 PM

l did not claim that the GA General Assembly does not represent the people of GA (l certainly argue that they do not do it very well).  I do and did argue that had the General Assembly not enacted SB-202 MLB would not have moved the game.  Do you actually dispute that?  Now if you want to argue that it was a stupid decision then I will agree with you, but do not try to put the immediate blame for the decision on anyone or anything other than where it belongs.

This discussion started with you saying Cobb County’s loss of the Allstar game was Biden’s “rewarding” the county that “turned GA blue”.  I pointed out the decision to overhaul the GA voting law was the reason for the game being moved. That is the bottom line and the point I made.  It was not about an analysis of the law that l posted but about the reason for the move.  If you want to read the law it is online.  I disagree with much of it and deplore the lie being pushed by Kemp that it “expands voter access”.  It does not!  It reduces the time allowed to request absentee ballots by 60%.  It does for the first time codify secure drop boxes but allows them only inside early vote sites and in reality reduces the number of secure drop boxes in urban counties by up to 75% and reduces the time when they are open to use at least 50% and may, if a county chooses (deep red counties will) may limit access to only between 9:00am and 5:00 pm (when is a trash collector who works 8 to 6 suppoased to deposit his ballot?).  It does expand the number of days for early voting but permits counties (deep red counties will) to reduce the hours in each day they are open (in 2020 they were open 24 hours a day...sort of like their alternatives, USPS mail boxes.  It sets up a different standard for instate voters and absentee military and overseas citizens (ranked choice for overseas to avoid them having to vote in a runoff but no such benefit to instate folks).  It gives the most politically biased body in the state, the General Assembly, the power to remove county election boards.  It mandates more early voting days but prohibits county election boards from accepting funds from non-partisan third parties to help offset the added cost (can you say “unfunded mandate”?). It requires more ID for an absentee ballot...I have no problem with this but I’m not one of the 3% (that’s 230,000) of people currently registered to vote or eligible to register to vote who do not have such an ID.  These are just a few of the lowlights of SB-202.  In closing, just remember almost all the voting procedures that have been altered by this bill were originally put in place by the GOP legislature in 2006 over protests from minorities, and which worked just fine until the GOP started losing statewide elections in GA in late 2020 and early 2021.