Thanks to the hysterics of an also-ran candidate for governor of the Peach State and a handful of woke celebrity jokes, Major League Baseball is making headlines. After Republicans pushed through the latest voting legislation, the Election Integrity Act of 2021, all hell broke loose in Georgia – as Charlie Daniels might have put it.
MLB was scheduled to hold its traditional All-Star Game in Atlanta this summer, but after hearing about Georgia’s new election law, organizers decided to move to pastures with looser voting rules – or so the league thought. Colorado, run by liberals and woke to everyone’s trials and tribulations save those of a straight-white-male of a certain age, is the new chosen location of the MLB game. At first glance, the Mile High folks have similar voting laws on the books. What a quirky twist of fate.
The Scorecard
Georgia liberals threw a tantrum and cried foul over the new “Jim Crow” law. In reality, the new law is to beef up election security and reduce fraud. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, emphasized the importance of the legislation: “it’s about protecting the very foundation of who we are as Georgians and Americans.”
Both Colorado and Georgia require some form of ID when registering to vote for the first time and then again when casting a ballot in person. Along with a driver’s license and passport, voters in Colorado can produce some 16 different forms of identification: Medicare and Medicaid cards, utility bills, and bank statements all count. In Georgia, folks have six options, including the last four digits of their social security number, government checks, bank statements, and utility bills.
Georgia now allows 17 days of in-person early voting; Colorado has 15. The primary difference, however, is that – for the most part – Coloradans vote by mail. Every registered voter in the state receives a ballot 15 to 20 days before the election, and they then can simply drop the ballot in the mail or at a dropbox. And there are a lot of dropboxes. In the 2020 election, Colorado had one dropbox per 9,400 active registered voters.
Colorado’s law gives “comfort teams” the right to provide food and water for people standing in line to vote – as long as they do not promote a candidate or cause. Georgia apparently believes that people are a tad tougher and allows only the voting center team to dole out food and water.
No one mentions the recreational use of marijuana on the Colorado books, where passing a blunt is entirely possible up and down the line of folks waiting to vote – unlike the situation in Georgia.
There’s No Crying In Baseball
[memberzone align=”left”] Major League Baseball may have entered the game of caving to progressive peer pressure late, but it certainly jumped in the pile of steaming turf fertilizer with both feet. With the relocation of the All-Star Game that a handful of folks bother to watch, punishing Georgia businesses struggling to reopen after COVID-19 seems simply spiteful. Colorado is not the social opposite of Georgia when it comes to voting parameters. Perhaps the MLB decision makers just experienced a knee-jerk reaction to being the next victim of the woke mob dictating corporate policy and forgot to research other states’ voting laws.
America’s national pastime may have just caught the last bus of lost revenues and a loyal fan base. But hey, it’s a political win for the left, no matter how ridiculous. And yes, there is crying in baseball.
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