Another provision that has somehow aroused all sorts of anger in the media is the one barring political campaigners from bribing voters with money, food, water, etc., within 150 feet of a polling place. This provision is already the law in many states, including New York. Liberals are not suddenly outraged by it. The outrage is entirely manufactured and disingenuous. Election workers and community volunteers will still be permitted to distribute food and water to voters in line.

Fortunately, the law also contains provisions that will make these long, dehydrating lines less likely. It empowers state officials to intervene and make voting easier where bad local decisions, mostly by election boards in Democratic-dominated cities, have resulted in fewer polling stations, longer lines, and otherwise poor administration. This provision points directly back to the 2018 election, when Kemp, then Georgia’s secretary of state, was dishonestly blamed for decisions that had been taken by local Democratic election boards to reduce the number of polling stations. Next time, state officials (mostly Republicans) will actually have power to undo local Democrats’ decisions that reduced voter access, causing long lines.

Finally, the law contains perfectly commonsense requirements that absentee voters provide appropriate proof of identity when requesting their ballots and request their ballot within a perfectly reasonable nine-week window — not the six-month period that was permitted in the 2020 election.