Since the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Democrats have painted Republican-led election integrity efforts as a modern-day version of Jim Crow, aimed at disenfranchising Black voters. The Daily Caller News Foundation reports how this rhetoric began in Georgia, where, in March 2021, the state passed a law tightening restrictions on absentee ballots and strengthening verification processes. The new law required voters to provide photo ID, driver’s license, state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number rather than relying on signature matches.
President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party seized upon the changes, labeling them as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and accusing Republicans of voter suppression. Biden’s Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Georgia, while Major League Baseball boycotted Atlanta by moving the All-Star Game in protest.
Biden reiterated this stance in January 2022, warning that the new measures were about “voter suppression and election subversion.” He claimed these laws were designed to make voting harder and questioned whether voters’ ballots would even count.
Despite this aggressive rhetoric, Georgia experienced a record voter turnout during the 2022 midterms, and the 2024 election is shattering previous records. Within just one week of early voting, over 1.4 million voters had cast their ballots in Georgia, a significant figure for the battleground state that delivered a crucial win for Biden in 2020.
Georgia is not alone. Republican-led states like Texas and North Carolina have implemented similar election integrity measures, with both states seeing increased voter turnout. Texas passed its election security bill in 2021, and North Carolina recently removed 747,000 inactive voters from its rolls for reasons including death or felony convictions. North Carolina also broke its early voting record this election cycle, with over 350,000 ballots cast on October 17 alone.
Louisiana has also joined the election integrity push. Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed an executive order requiring state agencies to notify non-citizens of U.S. citizenship requirements when distributing voter registration materials. Despite these new measures, Louisiana has set a record for early voting, with nearly 177,000 ballots cast on October 18—exceeding 2020’s figures.
Early voting in Texas is expected to continue the trend when it begins on Monday, suggesting 2024 may be a record-breaking year for turnout across the board. These impressive numbers contradict the left’s claims of voter suppression, showing that increased security measures do not inhibit voting but rather reinforce electoral integrity.
The Democratic Party’s fear-mongering surrounding so-called “Jim Crow 2.0” is proving to be a toxic political strategy that does little to address genuine concerns about voter access. The comparison is also seen as an insult to Black Americans who lived through the real Jim Crow and fought for civil rights, with laws today focusing on simple requirements like showing a photo ID to vote.
