The Georgia Secretary of State Tried to Big League Larry David After ‘Curb’ Mocked His Favorite Law
This Sunday, Larry David will stand trial for accidentally violating an absurd provision of Georgia’s 2021 Election Integrity Act in the Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale. But one of the law’s most staunch defenders has already passed his own judgment.
Just as Seinfeld ended its run with a controversial court-room episode, Curb Your Enthusiasm seems set on doing the same when David takes the stand over his illegal act of kindness in line at a Georgia polling station in the Season 12 premiere. Back at the beginning of February, we watched David get dragged off by police officers after he handed a water bottle to Leon’s Aunt Rae while she waited in line to vote, thus breaching the ban on providing food or water to voters within 150 feet of a polling station as established by the controversial Election Integrity Act.
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Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has repeatedly defended the Election Integrity Act and all of its bizarre clauses, took issue with David’s mockery of the law and wrote a letter directly to David that news outlets in Georgia and across the country quoted this past week. Rather than melt down on Twitter like his colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene, Raffensperger decided to take a more humorous approach to expressing his distaste for the depiction of his favorite piece of legislation in a sarcastic missive that reads as if Raffensperger is campaigning to be a staff writer on David’s next project post-Curb.
“As the chief elections officer for the State of Georgia, we’d like to congratulate you on becoming the first and, to our knowledge, only person arrested for distributing water bottles to voters within 150 feet of a polling station,” Raffensperger wrote David in the open letter before bragging about another famous seventy-something who had a run-in Georgia law enforcement. “We apologize if you didn’t receive celebrity treatment at the local jail. I’m afraid they’ve gotten used to bigger stars. It’s the TMZ of mugshots,” Raffensperger wrote, referencing Donald Trump’s 2023 indictment at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta for election racketeering.
Famously, Raffensperger, a Republican, was on the receiving end of the phone call Trump placed during the 2020 election asking for Raffensperger to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win the state over Biden. Raffensperger refused, and the secretary of state has since defended the validity of the 2020 results, in stark contrast to many other Republican lawmakers in Georgia who still claim that the election was stolen from Trump.
However, despite his diversion from party talking points, Raffensperger still used the letter to fire shots across the aisle, writing, “Given that Democrats have described the limited ban on food and water in voting lines as a threat to public health, we do hope that Leon’s aunt avoided a tragic death, even though that would allow you to keep those sporty glasses.” Raffensperger then added a sly Curb reference, writing, “Moving forward, we would encourage her to avoid long lines by employing the well known ‘chat and cut,’ whereby one engages an acquaintance in fake conversation in order to join that person in line.”
Raffensperger proceeded to boast about the record voting turnout and low wait times at polling stations in Georgia elections since the 2021 Election Integrity Act was passed, but he failed to address David’s main point in the Curb arc — it’s still stupid to ban people from sharing water bottles while they’re waiting in line. No amount of finger-wagging that’s barely disguised beneath comedic condescension will change that.
"While my powers as secretary of state to perform miracles are often overstated, I’m afraid I lack the authority to grant a pardon — even if you call me to ask for one,” Raffensperger added of David's upcoming trial.
I imagine he said something similar to Trump.
