Ben Shapiro defended Georgia's new voting law against claims that it amounts tovoter suppression .- He said long lines weren't voter suppression "any more than long lines at Disneyland are."
- Democrats and activists say the
Georgia law harms voters and targets minority voters in particular.
The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has defended Georgia's new voting law, saying long lines at polling places are not voter suppression but rather are comparable to Disneyland queues.
The Republican-backed law includes requiring voters to show ID while requesting and returning absentee ballots and makes it illegal to provide food or water to people standing in line to vote.
Democrats have criticized the law, saying that it amounts to voter suppression and that Republicans were using it to target Black and other nonwhite voters. Those groups' turnout was credited with flipping the state for Democrats in the latest presidential and US Senate elections in the state.
Shapiro told his namesake "The Ben Shapiro Show" that "voter suppression doesn't involve long lines any more than long lines at Disneyland are ride suppression."
"You know what voter suppression is?" he said. "Voter suppression is where you don't get to vote."
-Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 31, 2021
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed the bill into law last week.
President Joe Biden called it a "blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience" and even likened it "to Jim Crow in the 21st century." Civil-rights groups and CEOs have also condemned it.