During this past session of the General Assembly, a new voting law was passed to allow people who have protective orders issued or are residents of a family violence shelter to shield their residence data on voter rolls. As I mentioned when I first wrote about this in May, this is a VERY good law, and genuinely needed to help protect people who have been abused. News has come out this morning that this law has been approved by the US DOJ under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and can now be implemented.
Prior to this law being passed (by the General Assembly, not the Secretary of State), people who have been abused could be relatively easily tracked every time they registered to vote. After all, as long as you know a person’s first initial, last name, and date of birth, you can go to this site and get their address and all State and Federal districts they are in. You also need to know the county they live in, but so long as you know that they are in Georgia, you can do a brute-force attack and look through every single county if you are not sure about exactly where they are.
Now, these people no longer have to live in fear that they will be tracked down and possibly killed by their abusers because they registered to vote – at least not in Georgia. And for that, we have nearly every single member of the General Assembly to thank. The reason I say nearly? Out of 236 members, there were 28 who missed the vote for whatever reason. Not an uncommon occurrence, and not one I’m making an issue of.
No, my issue is with the three members of the General Assembly who voted to allow abusers to track down and possibly kill the people who fled them. All three were members of the Georgia House of Representatives, and two of them have been in the news over the past month.
The three members who voted to allow abusers to track down and possibly kill the people who fled them?
Tim Bearden.
Barry Loudermilk.
Bobby Franklin.
I’ve seen what can happen when an abuser is able to track down a person who has fled them. I saw it working in the bus ministry at my church growing up, and I’ve seen it in my current job. I’ve seen far too many barely recognizable faces, far too many hospitalizations – and far too many funerals, all due to this very situation.
Tim Bearden, Barry Loudermilk, and Bobby Franklin want me to continue to see more of them.
I think it is time the People of Georgia send these three men back to their homes. They are not fit to be leaders in this State.
