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Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, and Brad Ashwell, Florida director of All Voting is Local, told the Phoenix Friday the corporations are right to oppose voting restrictions that affect their employees, their customers, and democracy itself — and they need to do more than say so.

“Now’s the time for corporations to speak up — loudly and clearly and definitively,” Ashwell said. “Now’s the time for them to stand up against these bills … that are blatantly racist.”

Aklima Khondoker, Georgia state director of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group, said she has heard from election officials that some are afraid to criticize a measure that effectively allows state lawmakers to remove them from their jobs.

The law, she said, is “holding our counties hostage.”

Aklima Khondoker, Georgia state director of the voting rights group All Voting Is Local, said the mobile voting ban "reeks of discrimination" against the "most ethnically diverse county in the state."

The law "bans buses for early voting," she tweeted. "Only Fulton County used buses in 2020. This helped thousands of voters cast their ballots, when lines were too long, and county staff were strained for resources. Disallowing them would disenfranchise thousands of black and brown voters."

“We don’t believe there is a problem that necessitates any of this,” All Voting is Local Florida State Director Brad Ashwell said. 

“This is directly targeted toward Fulton County, because Fulton County was the only county that had mobile buses,” said Aklima Khondoker, state director for the Georgia chapter of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group.

“If you are interested in what’s in my purse, then you ought to be interested in my ballot access,” Khondoker said.