As Democrats increasingly brandish the Jim Crow comparison in the fight over state and national election laws, critics — including Black conservatives — are challenging the narrative, saying it trivializes the era’s horrific abuses by likening them to standard identification requirements used for everything from boarding an airplane to buying beer.
“Comparing absentee ballot changes and ID requirements to banning Black people from restaurants and drinking fountains is absurd,” Mr. Lancaster said in an email.
Wilfred Reilly, associate political science professor at Kentucky State University, a historically Black college, said the “Jim Crow claim passes through ‘nonsensical’ into offensiveness.”
The Georgia Election Integrity Act expands voting hours but also requires identification for absentee voting, prohibits handing out food and drinks for voters within 150 feet of polling entrances and bans the mobile-voting buses used during last year’s pandemic.