‘Jim Crow in 21st century’: Biden slams new Georgia law that curbs voting access

US President Joe Biden has condemned a new voting law in Georgia that curbs voting access for state residents as “un-American” and “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”

“It’s an atrocity,” Biden said in a statement outside the White House on Friday.

The law adds restrictions to voting that Biden said disproportionately targeted African Americans and called it a “a blatant attack on the Constitution”

The measure, passed this week by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature, makes Georgia the first presidential battleground state and the second overall to restrict ballot access in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Voting rights groups say the law will especially target Black Americans, who make up roughly a third of Georgia’s population and proved crucial in recent Democratic victories.

They link the measure to the so-called Jim Crow laws of the 19th and 20th Century laws that enforced racial segregation in the US South and were widely used to suppress the vote of African Americans.

In the November election, Biden became the first Democratic candidate to win Georgia since 1992, prompting then-president and Republican candidate Donald Trump to claim that expanded voter access had led to widespread fraud in the state and, in turn, his defeat.

And in January, Democrats took control of the US Senate when Georgia Republicans lost two run-off races to Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who captured 92 percent and 93 percent of the Black vote respectively.

Despite those Democratic wins, the state's government is controlled by the Republicans.

Among the restrictions introduced by the new voting law are new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, and a limit on the use of ballot drop boxes that make it easier to vote.

A record 1.3 million Georgians -- or more than a quarter of the state’s electorate -- voted absentee amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the last general election.

The measure also prohibits giving food and water to people waiting in lines to vote.

“If you want any indication that it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency, they passed a law saying you can’t provide water for people standing in line while they’re waiting to vote. You don’t need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting,” Biden said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, a Democratic state lawmaker was arrested while protesting against the legislation. Park Cannon was handcuffed and removed from the state Capitol for banging on Governor Brian Kemp's office door as he signed the bill.

In a statement on Facebook, Rep. Cannon said she “will not stand by while our voting rights are threatened” and vowed to “continue this fight.”

The state lawmaker also denounced the new voting law in Georgia as “Jim Crow in new clothes.”

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