One Republican senator doesn’t believe people should be allowed to vote on Sundays because it’s the Lord’s day.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi made her point on Wednesday in response to a comment from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who, on the Senate floor, said state legislatures are working to promote voting reforms that would disenfranchise minority voters.
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Schumer specifically referenced Georgia, as the state’s legislature is debating a handful of bills. One of the pieces of legislation would limit early voting on Sundays, which is very popular among the Georgian African American community who go together once church gets out.
“Why did the Georgia Legislature only pick Sundays to say there should be no early voting on Sunday?” Schumer said on the Senate floor, per the Washington Post. “We know why. It’s because that’s the day African Americans vote in the ‘Souls to the Poll’ operation where they go from church to vote. It’s despicable.”
Hyde-Smith later addressed the comment during a committee hearing.
“Georgia is a Southern state just like Mississippi, and I cannot speak for Georgia, but I can speak for Mississippi on why we would never do that on Sunday,” she said.
Invoking the Bible, the Mississippi senator said, “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. So that is my response to Sen. Schumer.”
The Schumer and Hyde-Smith commentary represents a stark divide between Democrats and Republicans at both the state and federal level who are debating election reform.
The 2020 election saw record turnout, the changing of many voting norms, a litany of unsubstantiated theories promoted by Republicans, and lead to the right calling for stricter voting laws to protect elections from fraud. Democrats have argued there has not been proof of overwhelming fraud and thus claiming, the right’s goals are more about preventing likely Democratic voters from going to the polls.
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Hundreds of bills have been introduced by Republican state legislatures across the country, which they argue will help ensure voter confidence by applying additional rules and regulations, and simultaneously, Democrats have introduced hundreds of bills on the state and federal level to implement the election reform they want, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning law and policy institute.
