Conservative group defends Georgia's voter suppression law with $1 million ad buy aimed at businesses

Georgia's so-called Election Integrity Act of 2021, the voter suppression bill that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law on March 25, has drawn vehement criticism from Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola and other Georgia-based companies — and Major League Baseball voiced its opposition by moving its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver. The right-wing Heritage Action for America, however, is defending the law with a million-dollar ad buy aimed at businesses, according to Axios reporter Hans Nichols.

President Joe Biden has slammed the law as "Jim Crow in the 21^st Century." And Nichols reports that in Heritage Action's ad, which will air on outlets that include CNBC and local Georgia television, the right-wing group declares, "President Biden is lying about Georgia's new election reform. This new ethics law doubles early voting on weekends."

Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson told Axios, "After weeks of media spin and corporate posturing around Georgia's new voting law, we thought it was time someone told the truth. The truth is that the new law makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat. Heritage Action is standing behind Gov. Kemp, state legislators and the Georgians who made this happen."

What the ad doesn't mention is the many ways in which the Election Integrity Act of 2021 makes voting more difficult in Georgia, from limiting absentee voting to making it a crime to give food or water to someone waiting in line to vote.

Nichols notes, "Critics of the law say its measures are intended to target heavily Democratic jurisdictions and will hurt Black and Latino voters the most."

Heritage Action is a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.