A Georgia elections board member actually advocated for an end to early voting following the Republican Party’s triple loss in presidential and Senate elections that President Joe Biden and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff emerged victorious in. Gwinnett County Board of Elections and Registrations Chairwoman Alice O’Lenick seems more than motivated to make sure Georgia voters don’t have the same opportunity to elect their leaders again. She was responding to a Facebook comment under a Gwinnett Daily Post news article about Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan opposing an effort to end no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia. Duncan said in the story that stripping Georgians of opportunities to access mail-in ballots shouldn't be included in “meaningful election reform.”
“I think the best step forward is for us to just look for an opportunity to create a photo ID process,” Duncan told the Daily Post. “I think that best fits the needs of 11 million Georgians.” Facebook user Susan Smith commented on the article: “With early voting he is right. They have given the weekend workers a chance to get to the polls.” O’Lenick responded: “Then end early voting.”
Georgia residents took her to task immediately for her position, which was discovered by the Daily Post. “Alice O'Lenick And that right there is why you should not be in public office,” attorney Rich Harris wrote. Cyndia Donald Halsey, a former sergeant major in the U.S. Army, asked: "Alice O'Lenick Can you give reasons why you think Early Voting should be ended? What would be your desired outcomes? Have you accounted for the unintended consequences and how the county or state would balance those?" Her questions went unanswered.
Atlanta attorney Terry Jackson wrote simply: “Alice O'Lenick as Dan (Aykroyd) used to say, Alice, you ignorant ...” The Georgia Republican’s dedication to voter suppression has been tried and true. She ignored calls to resign last month after she told the Daily Post she was “like a dog with a bone” when it came to changing the state's election laws. “I will not let them end this session without changing some of these laws,” she said. “They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.”
Fair Fight, a voter registration organization founded by Stacey Abrams, a former state gubernatorial contender, joined 16 other voting and civil rights organizations to call for O'Lenick's resignation. “O'Lenick isn't even trying to hide her bias against Democratic voters and voters of color in Gwinnett County. She has made clear that her only motivation is pure partisanship, engaging openly in rhetoric that is more suited for a political party hack than an elections official,” Fair Fight tweeted on Jan. 19.
The sad reality is that O'Lenick does not stand alone in Georgia. Republican senators in the state introduced bills Monday to toss out ballot drop boxes, automatic voter registration, and no excuse voting-by-mail, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’ve got to restore confidence in the ballot box. When people lose confidence in the ballot box they ultimately lose confidence in their government,” Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, who co-sponsored the bills, told the newspaper. “Our goal is to be sure every vote is accounted for, accurate and legal.”
Democrats aren't exactly believing that take on the truth. “It’s voter suppression,” Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler told the AJC. “If you restrict access, then people get discouraged and they don’t vote. They don’t come back. We have to make the argument that it’s a good process. People were able to vote, and they voted in record numbers.”
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Source: Daily Kos
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