Students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. expressed support for voting reform when asked what they thought about specific measures taken to ensure election integrity — then they found out the reforms are from Georgia’s new voting law.
Campus Reform reporter Addison Smith read parts of the new voting law to Georgetown students to get their reaction to it — before telling them that the legislation is from Georgia.
“We’re from Georgia, so there’s a lot of voter suppression in Georgia, and I think that there needs to be a lot more freedom and accessibility towards polls and extending hours,” said one student being interviewed with her friend.
“The, like, original system was created because, like, they thought the populace was, like, too dumb,” said another student.
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Smith explained to the students that “there’s some legislation going around,” which would “require weekend early voting for two Saturdays,” instead of just one, “give counties the option to expand it two Sundays,” “clarify the polling hours,” “ban electioneering within 150 feet” of a polling location, and “require voter identification” so that people cannot cast multiple ballots.
When asked if they would support legislation like that, many students agreed.
“Yeah, I mean, making sure that people aren’t casting more than one vote, that sounds kind of common sense to me,” said one student.
“Yeah, I think that allowing voters more time to vote is never a bad thing, I think that making sure that they can verify their identity is also not a bad thing so that there’s no, like, illegal voting happening or anything like that,” reacted another.
A third student, who was white, said, “definitely the first two,” but expressed that she did not support voter identification, claiming, “not everyone has access to an ID or has the ability to get one,” and that “not everybody has a static location where they live.”
But when Smith asked the students, “what if I told you that this actually was the Georgia voting bill?” the students appeared shocked.
And when asked if the legislation sounds like “Jim Crow on steroids,” one student said, “no, I guess not.”
President Joe Biden has described Georgia’s election integrity bill as “Jim Crow on steroids.”
One student, however, maintained that the concept of voter identification is “classist.”
“A poll came out that showed 70 percent of black Americans do support voter ID,” Smith countered. “A lot of people are calling it ‘Jim Crow,’ suppression — but the majority of black Americans actually support it.”
“Okay, I don’t,” the student replied.
Georgia’s new election integrity legislation has sparked outrage among left-wing activists, who consider the legislation an attack on minorities, suggesting that members of the black community cannot figure out how to acquire a photo ID, among other bizarre assumptions.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.
