The Washington Post’s Philip Bump is a zealot masquerading as a journalist. In today’s “news analysis” he continues to pump the narrative that Georgia’s new voting law is obviously bad because…well because republicans are just bad. That’s why.

“There’s always a reason that legislation is introduced, always some problem that lawmakers say needs to be addressed in the moment. In Georgia, there is no rational motivation for the passage of its new election law other than demonstrating fealty to the false claims elevated by Trump. Why did Raffensperger need to be replaced on the elections board now? Why did the rules governing absentee applications need to be tightened now, only a few months after an election in which repeated review and extensive scrutiny showed no improprieties had occurred?”

The answer is: COVID is (almost) over and the legislature is smart enough to know that the COVID-era loosey-goosey, let’s-mail-a-ballot-to-anyone-even-dead-people policies are generally unpopular and make elections less safe.

Keeping but reducing the number drop boxes, which didn’t exist before COVID is not a restriction, it’s the opposite. In a post-COVID world why would we need drop boxes anyway? Likewise, requiring ID for absentee ballots is exactly the same as states like Washington, Connecticut, and Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. Since the legislature is making drop boxes permanent, they want to ensure the ballots are secure. That’s as rational a motivation as there can be for a healthy democracy.

But Teeny Torquemada doesn’t see it that way. Any and all relaxing of voting security (even the unlawful kind) must be upheld in the new world order that seeks to ensure republicans never win another election. After the President himself was awarded four Pinocchios for claiming the Georgia law is “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” the zealots need something to justify their their inquisition.