Fact checkers puzzled about how the president got it so wrong

Conservatives don’t often take this fact checker’s word for who’s right or wrong, but liberals/progressives/Democrats usually consider it’s conclusions to be right if not iron clad.

Apparently, not this time. The Washington Post fact checkers were flummoxed by how President Joe Biden, calling the law “sick,” got some of its provisions so wrong.

One’s one: Biden said the law “… ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” It does not. Here’s what it actually does, according to the Post:

“One of the biggest changes in the bill would expand early voting access for most counties, adding an additional mandatory Saturday and formally codifying Sunday voting hours as optional,” Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting said in an excellent and comprehensive report on the impact of the new law. “Counties can have early voting open as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at minimum. If you live in a larger metropolitan county, you might not notice a change. For most other counties, you will have an extra weekend day, and your weekday early voting hours will likely be longer.”

I strongly recommend a thorough reading of the Fowler’s report here. In it, you will you find extensive and thorough revisions of the voting code, as any reform effort would try to do. You’ll find that there are legitimate public policy issues that are due rational debate.

Biden is not just wrong, but shockingly so. So wrong that the Post fact checkers had to speculate about how a United State president could so disgracefully blow it. They asked:

So where would Biden get this perception that ordinary workers were getting the shaft because the state would “end voting at five o’clock”? We have one clue.

Possibly Biden read an earlier version of the bill, they suggested, there being so many versions out there, the said. The Post asked the White House for an explanation, but received none.

Here are some other possible explanations: Biden didn’t know what the hell the bill actually said. He (or his staff) didn’t bother to check. Biden said what he was told to say by whoever are his handlers. All in all, I don’t think Biden was lying, an accusation that assumes that he know that what he was saying was wrong. That is a scary notion.

Yet. And yet, the media keep painting the law as an abomination. Major League Baseball and corporations (amazingly, Atlanta-based Coke Cola and Delta Airlines) fell for the line.

In my view, the law accomplishes its purpose to help ensure election integrity. The argument that its intent is to disenfranchise Democratic minority voters is thin when the law is closely examined.

Read it.

dennis@dennisbyrne.net

www.dennisbyrne.net 

My historical novel: Madness: The War of 1812