Major League Baseball recently pulled its All-Star Game from Atlanta in response to Georgia’s new voter-suppression law. The exhibition will instead be played this year in Denver.
And that, evidently, gave some Republicans an idea for a new talking point. At a briefing today, for example, Fox News’ White House correspondent asked:
“Is the White House concerned that Major League Baseball is moving its All-Star Game to Colorado, where voting regulations are very similar to Georgia?”
The premise of the question was, of course, false, but this is clearly the line of the day in GOP circles.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) argued this morning that Colorado has “even stricter voting regulations” than Georgia. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) published a related tweet, insisting the Colorado has fewer days of early voting than Georgia. Matt Whitlock, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed a similar message.
Conservative media ran big headlines such as, “Colorado voting laws are similar to Georgia’s despite decision to move Major League Baseball All-Star Game.”
The point, of course, is unsubtle: all Georgia Republicans did was pass the same kind of voting regulations that are found in blue states like Colorado, but everyone’s picking on them as part of a political vendetta, launched by rascally Democrats and meanies in Corporate America. The fact that the All-Star Game is headed to Denver, the argument goes, proves just how unfair it is to punish the poor, picked on Georgia GOP.
This is, in reality, spectacularly wrong.
Colorado’s voting laws have effectively nothing in common with Georgia’s newly revised system. In Colorado, for example, every eligible voter is automatically mailed a ballot, which Coloradans are free to return via mail or through drop boxes located throughout the state. The Rocky Mountain State has also automatic voter registration, and same-day registration for both in-person voters who choose to vote early or on Election Day.
Are these election laws “very similar” to Georgia’s? Not even a little. In Georgia, it is now illegal to send every eligible voter a ballot. Georgia Republicans have also made it harder to request mail ballots, cast mail ballots, and use drop boxes. Georgia has neither automatic voter registration nor same-day registration.
Yes, Colorado does have voter ID, as does Georgia, but as a Washington Post analysis explained, Colorado’s law is “not as stringent as many critics have suggested, or as stringent as what Georgia has and will have.”









