Media, Politics

The Washington Post Gives Biden “Four Pinocchios” For Statement on New Georgia Election Law

The Washington Post has issued a rare rebuke to President Joe Biden over his statement about the new Georgia election law.  As noted earlier, Biden’s statistical claims about the crisis on the Southern border have also been challenged by news organizations as false or misleading. However, one statement on the Georgia law stood out for many when Biden declared “What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick … deciding that you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work.” The statement was repeated in an official White House release from the President. The is untrue and the Post awarded Four Pinocchios.  However, one other statement in the article was equally surprising.

The election law actually does the opposite of what Biden claimed. It guaranteed that, at a minimum, polls would remain open for a full work day while allowing the extended hours commonly used on election day.  The prior law was ambiguous and would have allowed earlier closing of polling places.

So the new law requires polling places to be open “beginning at 9:00 AM and ending at 5:00 PM.” However, the law also allows individual counties to set the hours anywhere between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The Post went further to note that the law, according to all of the experts consulted, has “the net effect … to expand the opportunities to vote for most Georgians, not limit them.”

The statement is in sharp contrast to Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin’s public criticism of “PBS NewsHour” correspondent Yamiche Alcindor for referring to the crisis in an otherwise fawning question at the same press conference. Rubin effectively criticized Alcindor for diverting from the approved narrative and told her to “see the Washington Post’s report of data.”  The data does not support Biden’s statements on the crisis and this is one Post column that is unlikely to be highlighted by Rubin or the White House.