(Reuters) – Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Robert Manfred said the league was relocating its 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft from Atlanta, following outcry over Georgia’s new voting restrictions.
“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box,” Manfred said in a written statement. “Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.”
Georgia last week strengthened identification requirements for absentee ballots, shortened early voting periods for runoffs and made it a crime to offer food and water to voters waiting in line.
The law, which was endorsed by the state’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, faces legal challenges as civil rights groups say it aims to suppress voting among Black people and other racial minorities.
Democratic President Joe Biden has been sharply critical of the law and on Wednesday said he would support moving the July All-Star Game out of the state as a form of protest, telling ESPN “This is Jim Crow on steroids what they’re doing in Georgia.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Chris Reese)
