Four summers ago, the Left’s apoplectic reaction to the passage of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 prompted the cynical authorities who run Major League Baseball to pull its All-Star Game out of Atlanta. Former President Joe Biden denounced the law as “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) called it a “full-fledged assault on voting rights.” Former Rep. Stacey Abrams called it “a blatant attempt to make it harder for people to vote, especially in communities of color,” warning corporations that do business in Georgia must stand against it or face consequences.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred caved to the pressure and moved the game to Denver, citing this as “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.” Their values presumably being feckless adherence to the latest baseless leftist fad.
But former President Barack Obama heaped praise on Manfred’s decision, congratulating MLB for “taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens.”
So when MLB decided to play its 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta, it would have been reasonable to expect boycotts, protests, even riots. After all, the Georgia voting law has not been changed since the dark days of the state’s supposed return to the Jim Crow South. Don’t Democrats disapprove anymore?
But the only sounds emanating from Tuesday night’s All-Star Game in Atlanta were the crack of bat on ball, the roar of the crowd, and celebratory shouts echoing through Truist Park. What happened in four short years to silence the outrage?
What happened was that Republicans won the debate over election security, and Democrats exposed themselves as fearmongers and liars.
The 2021 Georgia law, misrepresented from the start by Democrats and the legacy media, enacted popular and common-sense reforms to secure the vote and ensure public confidence in elections. It replaced signature matching for absentee ballots with a requirement for voters to provide a driver’s license number, state ID number, or a photocopy of an accepted form of identification. It codified the use of ballot drop boxes but set clear regulations for their placement and accessibility hours, ensuring they were monitored and secure. It outlawed “ballot harvesting,” in which people collect mail-in and absentee ballots to submit en masse. It also expanded in-person early voting, including mandatory weekend hours.
These reforms produced a surge in confidence in elections among Georgians. A Cygnal poll in May found that nearly three-quarters of voters trust the system, a 27-point upward swing since the bill became law. Meanwhile, a 2022 MIT study found that 99% of Georgia voters reported no problems voting during the midterm elections that year.
Increased turnout after the law passed reflects this surge in confidence. The vote total in the two most recent midterm elections increased by roughly 5%, and in the two most recent general elections by 6%. Early voting, in particular, broke records. On the first day of early voting in 2024, Georgia more than doubled the turnout of 2020 and 2022.
MLB HOLDS ALL-STAR GAME IN THE LAND OF JIM CROW
Notably, the number of black Georgians casting ballots increased by 80,000 between 2020 and 2024. This occurred even as voting methods shifted, with many black voters adapting without a hiccup to updated procedures, including expanded early voting hours. Democrats routinely suggested that black voters were incapable of securing the necessary documentation to vote — the soft bigotry of low expectations. But black voters defied this prejudice and turned out to vote in record numbers.
The deafening silence about all this at the All-Star Game repudiated the Democrats’ hysteria over Georgia’s Election Integrity Act. Republican election reforms are popular and effective. The debate is now over.