Kemp insists controversial Georgia election reform bill 'expanding right to vote'

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Gov. Kemp: All Georgians now eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine

Republican provides an update on his state's coronavirus response on 'Your World'

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp joined "Your World" Thursday, one day after announcing every state resident aged 16 and older can receive a coronavirus vaccine. 

KEMP: We’ve vaccinated 75% of our seniors. Our first responders, health care heroes, and most of our teachers have now been vaccinated. We lowered the age [of eligibility] a few days ago to 55 and now we’re opening it up to everybody.

We’re dealing with the situation we have in Georgia, every state is different in a lot of ways. We’re seeing tremendous demands in the metro Atlanta area. Thankfully the federal government has increased the vaccine supply that we’re getting. We were 49th out of 50 per capita for the number of vaccines we were getting, which was really holding us back. Even though we had great demand in the metro area, in parts of rural Georgia we started seeing the demand drop, we started seeing the number of appointments people could get go up, therefore we felt like we need to open it up further, give everybody eligibility. Let’s keep getting shots in arms.

Kemp also discussed the state's Republican-sponsored election reform bill, which was passed by the legislature Thursday despite outcry from liberal activists.

What this bill actually does is fight the rhetoric from those that are fund-raising off of this issue and polarizing it, to take away from the unconstitutional power grab of H.R. 1 that’s going on in Washington D.C. right now. It further secures our absentee ballots by mail by requiring a photo I.D., which the vast majority of Georgians support. It is also adding days of early voting on the weekends. We’re expanding the right to vote in Georgia. You’re not hearing that from the other side. That’s what the truth is, as well as further securing absentee ballot boxes, which didn’t exist before.

It’s completely contrary to what they’re trying to do in D.C. by doing away with the state’s photo I.D. requirement, by doing away with it being illegal to harvest ballots in Georgia [and] making that mandatory at the federal level. I fought very hard for over a decade to keep our voter rolls secure. You wouldn’t be able to do that with H.R. 1. So I think the people really need to look at who is trying to restrict things. It's the Democrats in Washington, not Republicans that continue to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW