BURSTAttorney General Pam Bondi has called off a federal lawsuit that challenged a controversial Georgia election law Republicans passed after former President Biden beat President Trump in the state's 2020 presidential election.
The law, which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed in 2021, makes it illegal to provide food or water to voters waiting in lines to cast their ballots, among other sweeping measures, which Democrats criticized as efforts to suppress voter turnout.
The Biden administration filed a lawsuite seeking to block the measure, dubbed the Election Integrity Act, with Biden calling the law "Jim Crow in the 21st century."
Bondi, in a scathing release from the Department of Justice on Monday announcing the lawsuit's dismissal, accused the Biden administration of creating "an untrue narrative" about the law.
"Contrary to the Biden Administration's false claims of suppression, Black voter turnout actually increased under (the law)," she said in a statement. "Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us."
The law triggered a wave of high-profile boycotts and counter-measures after its initial passage, including the relocation of the 2021 Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game that was slated to take place in Atlanta that year. It was also a central plot point in a season of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
The law expands voter identification requirements, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and bars counties from deploying mobile voting units in most cases, in addition to the ban on provisions for people waiting in line to vote.
Former President Carter, a Georgia native and Democrat who died in December, was among several vocal critics of the changes.
Georgia, which went in Trump's favor last year, saw record voter turnout in 2024.