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MLB pulls All-Star game from Atlanta over Georgia's new voting laws. Here's where the dispute stands
Georgia's new voting laws have triggered a debate in the US, with the corporate entities like MLB and Coca-Cola throwing their weight behind critics of the legislation, and former president Trump urging his supporters to boycott establishments criticising the laws.
A dispute, in the making over the last two weeks, has now broken out over Georgia's new election laws, which critics say is specifically aimed at suppressing the minority vote that helped US President Joe Biden in his race to the White House last November. The corporate world has been joining in on the dissent against the law, and on Sunday, Major League Baseball (MLB) said it was moving this year’s All-Star Game and the MLB Draft event from Atlanta to show its concern for voting rights in the state of Georgia.
“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft,” news agency Bloomberg quoted MLB commissioner Robert Manfred Jr as saying. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box,” he added.
Georgia's new voting law, which was signed into effect on March 25, intends to make several changes in the way elections are conducted in the state. The law gives the Georgia election board powers to interfere in the election offices of 159 counties and imposes ID requirements for absentee ballots, replacing the current system that required only signatures. The new voting law in Georgia also limits the use of ballot drop boxes and shortens the time for runoff elections in the state from nine weeks to four weeks.
Also Read: Explained: Georgia's new voting law that Biden called 'Jim Crow in 21st century
The new voting law in Georgia has found several critics, with the Democratic Party saying the legislation will restrict voting access, especially for people of colour. This comes as a crucial objection since Georgia — being a 'battleground state' — was at the centre of the US presidential elections last year. Having voted in favour of the Republican party for years, Georgia switched its trend in the 2020 elections, making Biden the first Democrat to win in Georgia since 1992. Analysts believed that the state turned blue as a large number of people of colour voted for the Democrats. This electorate, the Democrats believe, is what is at stake now on account of the new voting laws.
Also Read: 'No accident': Georgia governor signs voting bill under slave plantation painting, sparks row
US President Joe Biden, in a statement last week, compared the new election laws in Georgia to the 19th-century Jim Crow laws, which once legalised racial segregation and disenfranchised Black citizens in America’s South. The Republicans, on the other hand, have claimed that Georgia's new voting laws will help 'restore' the confidence which people lost after the 2020 elections. Former US president Donald Trump, who led the allegations of "voter fraud" in Georgia following the elections, is now back in on the debate over the new voting laws. According to a report by the Associated Press, he has endorsed the new voting laws in Georgia and urged his supporters to fight "woke cancel culture" by boycotting the corporate entities objecting to the legislation.
Former US president Barack Obama on Saturday commended MLB in a tweet for “taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens.” The CEOs of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola have condemned Georgia's new voting laws as being "too restrictive", reports AP. A joint statement from executives of nearly 200 companies, including HP, Microsoft, PayPal, Target, Twitter, Uber and Under Armour, also took aim at the legislation “threatening to make voting more difficult" and said “elections are not improved” when lawmakers impose new barriers to voting.
