For more than a week before election day, a commercial warns Georgians not to give water to voters waiting outside polling stations to vote.
“Do you live in Georgia? Do you have to drink water to stay alive? Do you want to participate in democracy? Shame!” says the narrator in the 90-second video by water canning company Liquid Death. “Because thanks to new laws in the great state of Georgia, it’s now illegal to give water to people within 150 feet of a polling station.”
A picture shows the text of a law in Georgia known as SB 202.
The narrator also suggests voters may have to queue for up to eight hours outside polling stations. But “helping people quench their thirst in line is so illegal that it now carries a penalty of up to a year in prison. Wow!”
The commercial offers a “Georgia Election Hydration Kit,” including a can of the company’s water, at a price of $1 for Georgia residents. The California company’s website lists the kits as sold out.
The ad also directs viewers to Headcount.org, a nonpartisan voter registration organization.
The ad’s two-part claim – that it is “illegal to give water to people within 150 feet of a polling station” and that it “is punishable by up to a year in prison” – is accurate.
What the Georgian law says about voters and water
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is running against Democrat Stacey Abrams for re-election, signed SB 202 into law in March 2021. At the time, he said the law would “ensure Georgia’s elections are safe, fair and accessible.” The law contains several provisions, including changes to absentee ballots, that could limit access while expanding access to early voting.
But the food and drink section for people in line has received some of the most outside attention. Here is the section of the law that deals with water, which states that no one “shall participate in the giving of money or gifts, including but not limited to, food and drink, to a voter, nor may any person sign signatures for solicit a petition, nor may any person other than electoral officials performing their duties set up or set up tables or booths on a day when ballots are being cast. (1) Established within 150 feet of the outside edge of any building in which a polling station is located; (2) within any polling station; or (3) within 25 feet of a voter standing in line to vote at any polling station.”
It is a misdemeanor to break the law, punishable by up to 12 months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
The law allows poll workers to “provide self-serve water from an unattended container to a voter who is waiting in line to vote.”
For years, pro-suffrage advocates organized efforts to give away bottles of water or food near polling stations, where residents sometimes waited hours to vote. Voters in majority-Black neighborhoods faced disproportionate wait times. In the June 2020 primary, voters waited in line for hours to cast a ballot, NPR reported in the fall.
Mike Hassinger, election spokesman for Georgia’s foreign minister, said long waits are no longer the case.
On the last general election day, Nov. 3, 2020, “the longest wait time of any voter in Georgia was 40 minutes, and the average wait time for the state was three minutes,” he said.
But on Oct. 17 and Nov. 4 — the first and last days of early voting in Georgia this year — election wait times ranged from 40 minutes to two hours, according to news reports.
Andy Pearson, vice president of creative at Liquid Death, said Headcount.org asked his company for a donation. But Liquid Death decided to do an ad instead to raise awareness. Although the law applies only to Georgia, Pearson said, “If laws like this continue to be passed elsewhere, there will be ramifications nationwide.” He also said the company sold hundreds of the Georgia Election Hydration kits before they ran out went.
Our verdict
Drinks company Liquid Death said in an ad that in Georgia it is “illegal to give water to people within 150 feet of a polling station” and “can be punished with up to a year in prison.”
A 2021 law in Georgia bans people from donating water within 150 feet of a polling station, and violators face up to 12 months in prison.
We evaluate the statement as true.
TIED TOGETHER: Fact check ads in the 2022 election
TIED TOGETHER: Georgia fact checks
