Georgia officials have filed a motion to dismiss the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) lawsuit against the state’s new voter integrity law, Senate Bill 202.
Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr this week released a statement and called the lawsuit “politically-charged” and said it seeks “to intrude into the State of Georgia’s constitutional authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of its elections.”
Kemp, for instance, said DOJ officials “would make great Hollywood screenwriters.”
“Their ‘lawsuit’ is loaded with partisan talking points and outright falsehoods because it is political propaganda aimed at justifying their unconstitutional federal takeover of elections across the country,” Kemp said.
“SB 202 provisions like requiring voter ID on absentee ballots, securing drop boxes around the clock, and expanding weekend voting opportunities are common sense reforms that ensure Georgia elections are secure, accessible, and fair. Instead of weaponizing the Department of Justice against election integrity measures, this administration should focus on reining in inflation, reducing violent crime, and securing our southern border.”
Carr, meanwhile, said the DOJ lawsuit reminds him more of a campaign flier.
“Biden’s Department of Justice is waging a shameless political attack on Georgia’s constitutional authority to regulate its elections,” Carr said.
“Georgia’s election system is equally accessible to all voters, and we will continue to vigorously defend the commonsense provisions of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act against these baseless, partisan attacks.”
Members of the group Greater Georgia, whose chair is former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, filed an amicus brief supporting the State of Georgia’s response to the DOJ suit.
“The DOJ’s cynical lawsuit is a baseless political stunt engineered by Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams to attack a law that actually expands ballot access,” Loeffler said in a statement.
“We’ve seen firsthand the loss of voter confidence across our state after unprecedented, inconsistent changes were made to our elections in 2020. Thanks to SB 202, Georgians have more access to securely cast a legal ballot, with more safeguards than ever before.”
Writers for The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as well The Federalist recently published pieces that told U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland that his case against Georgia’s voter integrity law is destined to fail.
The writers also told Garland that he’s better off abandoning the case.
Writing for USA Today, legal scholar Jonathan Turley wrote that “the Biden administration is setting itself up for failure.”
SB 202 requires, among other things, voter ID on all absentee ballots and increased oversight of local election boards that fail to follow state election law.
Major League Baseball (MLB) officials announced in April they would relocate the 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft, originally scheduled for Atlanta, to Colorado. They specifically blamed SB 202 for prompting the move.
At the time Kemp blasted the MLB and said “Georgians – and all Americans – should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included. If the left doesn’t agree with you, facts and the truth do not matter.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
