The Biden Department of Justice has announced that it’ll sue the state of Georgia over new voting laws passed within the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the laws were “enacted with the aim of denying or abridging the proper of black Georgians to vote”.
Republicans, who control Georgia’s state legislature, say the restrictions streamline voting procedures.
Mr Garland also issued a mandate to prosecute threats to election workers.
It amounts to the primary major action the Biden administration has taken in response to a wave of voting restrictions passed in Republican-led states.
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Responding to the announcement, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said the lawsuit “is born out of the lies and misinformation the Biden administration has pushed against” the state voting law.
In a statement, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said: “I anticipate to meeting them, and beating them, in court.”
President Biden has called the Georgia law “a blatant attack on the Constitution”.
He has also joined voting rights activists in deriding the restrictions as “Jim Crow within the 21st Century”, a regard to the 19th and 20th Century laws that enforced segregation within the South.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke said: “The Department of Justice won’t stand idly by within the face of unlawful attempts to limit access to the ballot.”
In last year’s presidential election, Mr Biden became the primary Democratic candidate to win Georgia since 1992 – and it had been high turnout among black Americans that was believed to possess tipped the state in his favour.
On the rear of strong black vote , Democrats once more emerged victorious with shocking upsets in dual runoff elections for the United States Senate this January.
Although there was no evidence of widespread fraud in these elections, many Republican voters and officials latched onto ex-President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of voting irregularities.
In March, Georgia became the second state to pass laws that restrict ballot access within the aftermath of the 2020 election, held during the coronavirus pandemic.
image captionThe bill sparked a mass public outcry and a number of other demonstrations outside the statehouse
Many of the more controversial proposed elements of the bill were removed before it had been passed.
But among the key elements of the legislation, it ensures new ID requirements for requesting mail-in ballots, replacing the present system which simply requires a signature.
It bans the practice of giving food or water – within a particular distance – to voters in line at polling stations.
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It also limits the amount of “drop boxes” during which people can place their absentee votes, meaning many will need to travel further, and shortens the early-voting period for all runoff elections.
And during a nod to a number of Mr Trump’s most pointed complaints, the law gives the Georgia state legislature more power to require control of voting operations if problems are reported.
The bill’s passage came amid a public outcry, with one Democratic lawmaker hauled away in handcuffs for protesting the signing ceremony.
In response to the legislation, big league Baseball announced it might move its lucrative All-Star Game and 2021 draft out of Georgia’s capital city of Atlanta. Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, both based in Atlanta, also criticised the bill’s passage.
Republicans have argued the new measures are about ensuring election integrity, streamlining the voting and counting procedures in order that Americans can have more confidence within the election system.
More than half Republican voters still believe Donald Trump lost because the 2020 election was rigged, consistent with a Reuters/Ipsos poll from April.
Many Republican-controlled state legislatures, including in large states like Florida and Texas, have proposed or adopted similar measures.
Presentational grey line
High-stakes legal battle looms large
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter
Although dozens folks state have enacted new laws changing their voting procedures following the 2020 election , Georgia’s restrictions were one among the primary – and most controversial.
Now the US Department of Justice has decided Georgia are going to be the primary state targeted with a lawsuit alleging that these changes violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
That sets up a high-stakes legal battle that would take months or maybe years to play out. If Department of Justice lawyers find a friendly judge, they might win an injunction that suspends implementation of the law until the court case is completed – which Democrats, with an eye fixed on Georgia’s new battleground electoral state status, would celebrate.
Of course, the last word fate of this lawsuit probably will rest within the hands of a US Supreme Court that has shown a willingness to weaken enforcement of the Voting Rights Act within the past and has only become more conservative in recent years.
That battle is well down the road, however. For now, the Georgia lawsuit is a sign that, while Democratic hopes for national voting reform legislation are fading, Joe Biden’s administration will aggressively use what election-oversight powers the federal currently possesses.
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