ATLANTA – Allies of a Democratic legislature arrested last week during a protest against Georgia’s new Republican electoral law are pushing for a police report knocking on the governor’s door with the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol is compared by a pro-Trump mob in January.
Democratic MP Park Cannon was arrested Thursday after she said she wanted to see GOP Governor Brian Kemp sign the law introducing new restrictions on postal voting. Cannon was charged with obstructing law enforcement and disturbing the General Assembly and was released from prison later that evening.
Lt. DG Langford said in an incident report that Cannon knocked on the governor’s office door and would not stop when soldiers approached.
“I felt that the other protesters would have been encouraged to commit similar acts if I hadn’t done anything,” the incident report said. “The events of January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol were in the back of my mind. I didn’t want the protesters trying to gain access to a secure part of the Capitol. “
Other Democratic lawmakers say the comparison is a stretch.
“You have not been threatened by a possible riot from someone shorter than me, with no guns and no raised voice,” tweeted Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick. “You were threatened by a black woman. Period. Point.”
Gerald Griggs, an attorney representing Cannon, said, “It is unfortunate that this language was used by the Capitol Police.”
“My review of the evidence, witnesses and videos, while preliminary, is that much of the facts set out in this police report do not match the actual facts of what happened,” Griggs said.
A federal lawsuit filed on Monday – the third to challenge the new law since it was signed last week – calls into question several aspects of the law. These include the ban on the provision of food and drinks to people standing in line to vote, new identification requirements for applying for and submitting a postal vote, and shortening the early voting days for runoff elections.
“This law is simply the suppression of voters,” said Sophia Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, during a video press conference. She said the law aims to make it difficult for historically disenfranchised minority communities to have a voice in democracy.
“It is an utterly shameful reaction to the historic participation of these communities in the last election cycle,” she said.
The new law violates the voting rights law and violates the constitutional rights of Georgian voters, the lawsuit said.
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