The High Cost of Georgia’s Restrictive Voting Bills | The New Yorker

Since the defeat of Donald Trump, voter-suppression efforts have emerged in Republican-controlled legislatures across the country. But the campaign in Georgia has particular resonance, in part, because it is so blatantly egregious. Republicans argue that the bills are necessary in order to “secure” elections, but the November ballots were scrutinized exhaustively, and no significant instances of fraud were found. Because Raphael Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator ever elected from Georgia, won in a special election and has to run for a full term next year, control of the Senate could again depend on the state. Last Wednesday, Warnock delivered his first speech on the Senate floor, and tied the cause of voting rights to the fight over the filibuster. “It is a contradiction,” he noted, “to protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society.”