Fresh Loaf

They’ll do it every time. One of the great ironies of our democracy is that we leave election law up to politicians.

We figured it was only a matter of time until Georgia Republicans, distraught over last week’s elections, began suggesting tweaks to voting guidelines. It’s the political equivalent of Monday-morning quarterbacking – except that, instead of second-guessing failed plays by the losing team, you day-dream about how the rules might have been changed to produce a different outcome.

I should note that both parties do this – in fact, the Democrats may have started it after Wyche Fowler lost the 1992 Senate runoff – and it’s pretty scuzzy every time it happens.

You’ll remember, of course, that state Sen. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah, started the ball rolling back in October when he called early voting “a mistake” after the GOP noticed that the wrong people seemed to be going to the polls. Then, only a day or so after the election, attorney Stefan Passantino, who heads the political law group for McKenna Long & Aldridge, Georgia’s most politically influential law firm, wrote an op-ed for the AJC in which he brazenly lambasted early voting as “uncontrolled voting.” Trust me, it’s got to be read to be believed. (more…)

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