The White House said Tuesday the Georgia legislature’s rewrite of election laws and like-minded efforts across the country are built on former President Donald Trump’s “lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that is an important fact to keep in mind when considering the fierce pushback against Georgia’s new election rules.
“The Georgia legislation is built on a lie,” Ms. Psaki told reporters at the daily briefing. “There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Georgia’s top Republican elections officials have acknowledged that repeatedly in interviews.”
“What there was, however, was record-setting turnout — especially by voters of color,” she said. “So, instead, what we are seeing here is for politicians who didn’t like the outcome, they’re not changing their policies to win more votes they are changing the rules to exclude more voters.”
Georgia’s law has intensified the debate over the GOP’s push for “election integrity” in the wake of the presidential election.
Things escalated further after Major League Baseball announced last week it was moving the 2021 All-Star Game and draft from Atlanta in response to the law.
MLB has reportedly relocated the game to Colorado.
Ms. Psaki said the debate over voting rights is “much bigger than Georgia.”
“Georgia was just one of the first states to act on a concerted effort to use easily disprovable conspiracy theories to fuel their attempts to make it even harder for eligible Americans to vote,” she said. “We are seeing a prevalence of this, a pattern, around the country of an effort to make it more difficult to vote”
She highlighted a tally from the Brennan Center For Justice that shows legislators have introduced 361 bills with “restrictive provisions” in 47 states.
Supporters of Georgia’s new election law say President Biden and Democrats are peddling lies about what the law means for voters, and say corporate American is buying into that misinformation campaign.
Some have questioned MLB’s decision to move their All-Star Game from Atlanta to Colorado, saying the election laws in the two states aren’t all that different.
Ms. Psaki, however, refuted that idea, saying Colorado allows same-day registration and all-mail in voting.
“We certainly see the circumstance as different,” she said of the states’ voting laws. “But ultimately … it is up to Major League Baseball to determine where they are holding their All-Star Game.
“We are not standing here and calling for companies to boycott,” Ms. Psaki said. “That is not what our focus is on from the White House.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.