President Joe Biden received massive criticism from conservative leaders and analysts on social media, who claimed he was repeating lies about Georgia’s election law.
During his speech to Morehouse College graduates in Atlanta on May 18, Biden claimed voters aren’t allowed to have water while waiting in line to vote. “Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election,” Biden said.
“What in the hell is that all about?”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger spotted his comments and chimed in on Twitter, stating that they were not true.
“It’s 2024. I can’t believe we’re still dealing with
lies about Georgia’s election from the left & right,” Raffensperger wrote. ”Once again, Georgia doesn’t have lines. Biden owes our election officials an apology & focus on the real issues – this damn inflation that is hitting hard-working Georgians.”Senior legal fellow of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Zack Smith, called the claim “a factually false statement.” “It’s obviously a factually false statement,” Smith said. “Every state bans electioneering near polling places. Prohibiting giving money and gifts to potential voters – as Georgia election law does – to prevent unduly influencing them as they wait to vote is a good and reasonable policy.”
He continued to state, “Of course, nothing in the law prohibits poll workers from providing water to voters, and nothing prohibits voters themselves from bringing snacks and water to eat and drink as they wait to vote.”
But is there some truth to the President’s statement? According to CNN, in 2023, a federal judge partially struck down a section of Georgia’s election law that banned people from handing out food and water to voters waiting in line, once signed into law in 2021 by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ruled that the ban should still be enforced in what he described as a “buffer zone” around a polling place — within 150 feet of the building where ballots are being cast. However, he paused enforcement of the ban in the “supplemental zone,” areas within 25 feet of a voter standing in line.
In 2020, volunteers provided food and water at polling locations across the U.S. during the presidential election while Georgia residents stood in line for hours waiting to vote. The law did allow poll workers to set up self-service water receptacles.
Yet, the executive director of Honest Elections Project, Jason Snead, accused the President of running a continuous smear campaign against the state of Georgia.
“Fact-checkers have debunked Biden’s claims about Georgia’s election law for years. Thanks to the law Joe Biden is smearing, Georgia held a historically successful, high-turnout, high-confidence election in 2022 and is poised to do the same this year,” Snead said.
“There is no excuse for continuing to spread these lies ahead of a high-stakes election.”
After Kemp implemented the law, Sen. Jon Ossoff countered by proposing a bill in the same year prohibiting states from banning volunteers from distributing food and water to voters in line to vote.